ALIS (Atomic Level Imaging Source), a Peabody, Massachusetts based unit of Carl Zeiss SMT AG, is another winner of WSJ’s 2007 Technology Innovation Awards, in the category of Materials and Other Base Technologies. Its Orion Helium Ion Microscope, described as “the brightest illumination source ever created by man,” offers unprecedented spatial resolution and ease of use, over electronic microscopes. The company has so far sold one unit, and has five more under construction.
In a move that will revolutionize the way we view the world, Carl Zeiss SMT has developed a next-generation microscopy tool that is able to see things never before visible.
This breakthrough in physics is an important milestone because advancements in electron microscopy have been few and far between since the mid-1960s, and scanning electron microscopes are near their practical performance limits. Today’s scientists struggle with problems they can’t solve because they can’t see what they need to see. In addition, sample preparation procedures are slow, tedious and imprecise.
Carl Zeiss SMT discovered the key that unlocked the potential of a gas field ion source (GFIS) to make possible a whole new, disruptive, microscopy tool. The Orion helium ion source enables this new generation helium ion microscope.
The Orion helium ion microscope operates somewhat like a typical focused ion beam system. There is a source, which produces a stream of helium ions; a column which accelerates, collimates, focuses and scans the beam; and a vacuum chamber that contains the sample to be imaged. A variety of detectors provide the flexibility of generating images.
The ALIS scanning ion microscope uses a beam of helium ions as the imaging particles. Since ions can be focused into a smaller probe size and have less sample interaction than electrons, the ALIS microscope can generate higher resolution images with more material contrast so more detail can be seen. We expect to be able to see things much smaller than we’ve ever been able to see with even the most sophisticated scanning electron microscope (SEM).
Product page: Atomic Level Imaging Source – Systems & Microscopes – Carl Zeiss SMT …
WSJ: 2007 Technology Innovation Winners and Runners-Up …
This portable oxygen concentrator from San Diego-based SeQual Technologies Inc. has received a special mention from the 2007 WSJ Technology Innovation Awards. The jury was particularly impressed by the device’s small size and weight, and its long battery time.
Aqua Sciences, Inc., a Florida company, has developed proprietary technology to literally extract water from air. A product of Darpa-sponsored research, the company’s mobile water extraction labs are being deployed in Iraq and other places with scarce water availability. According to the Wall Street Journal, which just awarded the company with a Silver Medal in its annual Technology Innovation Awards, the “technology uses a blend of salts to collect water, then employs the combination of heat, chemistry and mechanics to extract the water from the salts.”
Researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Centers for Disease Control have sequenced and analyzed the various strains of smallpox they have stored away, to discover that, apparently, the pathogen is much older than was originally thought.
Building on technology developed at Sandia National Lab, three institutions are joining forces to develop a field biotoxin detector for use by first responders after accidental toxic exposure or bioterror attack.
Though microRNA’s have been known of playing a role in cancer development for some time, an MIT postdoc demonstrated that they play a significant role in the metastatic process of cancer cells.
