Coherent Fourier Scatterometry for Detection of Killer Defects on Silicon Carbide Samples

It has been a widely growing interest in using silicon carbide (SiC) in high-power electronic devices. Yet, SiC wafers may contain killer defects that could reduce fabrication yield and make the device fall into unexpected failures. To prevent these failures from happening, it is very important to develop inspection tools that can detect,...

A compact microscope for voltage imaging

Voltage imaging and optogenetics offer new routes to optically detect and influence neural dynamics. Optimized hardware is necessary to make the most of these new techniques. Here we present the Octoscope, a versatile, multimodal device for all-optical electrophysiology. We illustrate its concept and design and demonstrate its capability to...

ppGpp is a bacterial cell size regulator

Growth and division are central to cell size. Bacteria achieve size homeostasis by dividing when growth has added a constant size since birth, termed the adder principle, by unknown mechanisms.¹^,² Growth is well known to be regulated by guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp), which controls diverse processes from...

Synergistic toughening and electrical functionalization of an epoxy using MWCNTs and silane- /plasma-activated basalt fibers

This work studied the effects of adding short basalt fibers (BFs) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), both separately and in combination, on the mechanical properties, fracture toughness, and electrical conductivity of an epoxy polymer. The surfaces of the short BFs were either treated using a silane coupling agent or further...

The effect of temperature on fatigue strength of poly(ether-imide)/multiwalled carbon nanotube/carbon fibers composites for aeronautical application

This work concerns the fatigue behavior at three different temperature conditions (−40, 20, and 80°C) and the addition of multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) into a carbon-fiber reinforced poly(ether-imide) composite. The incorporation of MWCNT into the composite increased the tensile strength and Young's modulus by up 5 and 2%, respectively....

Controlled Environment Specimen Transfer

Specimen transfer under controlled environment conditions, such as temperature, pressure, and gas composition, is necessary to conduct successive complementary in situ characterization of materials sensitive to ambient conditions. The in situ transfer concept is introduced by linking an environmental transmission electron microscope to an in...

Structured morphological modeling as a framework for rational strain design of Streptomyces species

Successful application of a computational model for rational design of industrial Streptomyces exploitation requires a better understanding of the relationship between morphology—dictated by microbial growth, branching, fragmentation and adhesion—and product formation. Here we review the state-of-the-art in modeling of growth and product...

High NA diffractive array illuminators and application in a multi-spot scanning microscope

Array illuminators generating spots with high NA at high efficiency are presented. They are designed via application of high-NA scalar optics methods, and implemented as periodic binary phase structures. These array illuminators are used in a multi-spot scanning microscope for scanning large sample areas with a relatively high resolution.

Microscope sees double

Some 350 years after Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s landmark invention, Delft has made another breakthrough in microscopy with a single device which combines optical and electron techniques

Self-healing of lime based mortars: Microscopy observations on case studies

Lime mortars have, up to a certain extent, a self-healing capacity which may contribute to their durability. Self-healing in lime mortars consists of a process of dissolution, transport and re-precipitation of calcium compounds to heal cracks and fissures. The spontaneous occurrence of self-healing in lime-based mortars is a well known...

Microscopy analysis of soils at the Phoenix landing site, Mars: Classification of soil particles and description of their optical and magnetic properties

The optical microscope onboard the Phoenix spacecraft has returned color images (4 ?m pixel?1) of soils that were delivered to and held on various substrates. A preliminary taxonomy of Phoenix soil particles, based on color, size, and shape, identifies the following particle types [generic names in brackets]: (1) reddish fines, mostly unresolved...

Real-time fluorescence lifetime imaging system with a 32 × 32 0.13?m CMOS low dark-count single-photon avalanche diode array

A compact real-time fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) system based on an array of low dark count 0.13?m CMOS singlephoton avalanche diodes (SPADs) is demonstrated. Fast background-insensitive fluorescence lifetime determination is achieved by use of a recently proposed algorithm called ‘Integration for Extraction Method’ (IEM) [J....

Characterization of room temperature metal microbolometers near the metal-insulator transition regime for scanning thermal microscopy

Metal microbolometers, used in scanning thermal microscopy, were microfabricated from <20?nm titanium thin films on SiO2/Si3N4/SiO2 cantilevers. These thin films are near the metal-insulator transition regime such that as the film thickness decreases—the resistance increases and the current-voltage characteristics cross over from sublinear to...

Near field imaging of terahertz focusing onto rectangular apertures

We performed terahertz near-field experiments on single rectangular holes with various lengths grown on an electro-optic crystal substrate with ?/100 resolution. We find that the near-field amplitude becomes proportionally larger as the rectangle becomes narrower, strongly suggesting that a constant energy passes through even for a very narrow...

Structured illumination microscopy using extraordinary transmission through sub-wavelength hole-arrays

Fourier-transform terahertz near-field imaging of one-dimensional slit arrays: Mapping of electric-field-, magnetic-field-, and Poynting vectors

We present 2D measurements of the full THz electric field behind a sample consisting of multiple slits in a metal foil. Our measurements, which have a sub-wavelength spatial, and a sub-period temporal resolution, reveal electric field lines, electric field vortices and saddle points. From our measurements we are able to reconstruct the magnetic...

Single fiber pullout from hybrid fiber reinforced concrete

Hybrid fiber reinforcement can be very efficient for improving the tensile response of the composite. In such materials, fibers of different geometries can act as bridging mechanisms over cracks of different widths. The fiber bridging efficiency depends on the interface properties, which makes interface characterization very important. Therefore...