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Sixty years of the Institute os Scientific Instruments
Müllerová, Ilona
The Institute of Scientific Instruments (ISI) was established in 1957 as an institution providing instrumental equipment for other institutes of the Academy of Sciences, mainly in the field of electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance and coherent optics. Three examples are shown in Figure 1. In the beginning the institute had only 83 employees, including the workshop which produced the electronics and all mechanical parts of the instruments. During the process of post-Communist transformation of the Academy of Sciences, which began in 1989, the development of entire instruments and devices was brought to a halt and scientific activities of our Institute focused on the methodology of probing the physical properties of matter in the above-mentioned main fields. New components of scientific instruments were developed that help push the limits of what hadpreviously been possible, continuing the long tradition of the Institute in these topics.
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Inelastic mean free path from raw data measured by low-energy electrons time-of-flight spectrometer
Zouhar, Martin ; Radlička, Tomáš ; Oral, Martin ; Konvalina, Ivo
The inelastic mean free path (IMFP) is a key parameter of electron transport in a solid. With\nthe rise of so-called meta-materials, materials of specific shape, such as 2D crystals, or\nmaterials with tailored functionality for next-generation electronic devices, the investigation\nof the IMFP is still topical and of high importance. This is true especially at low energies, landing energy of electrons below 100 eV, that are hard to study using well established\ntechniques of electron spectroscopy.
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Locking in on large volume light-sheet microscopy
Vettenburg, T. ; Dalgarno, H.I.C. ; Nylk, J. ; Coll-Lladó, C. ; Ferrier, D.E.K. ; Čižmár, Tomáš ; Gunn-Moore, F.J. ; Dholakia, K. ; Corral, A. ; Rodriguez-Pulido, A. ; Flors, C. ; Ripoll, J.
Fluorescence light-sheet microscopy is increasingly adopted by developmental biologists to study how cells divide and differentiate to form organs and even entire organisms. The lightsheet microscope differs from a conventional microscope in that the specimen is illuminated by a plane of light orthogonal to the detection axis, thus keeping the out-of-focus areas dark while minimizing any potentially detrimental exposure of the sample. The light-sheet microscope has been found to be the ideal instrument for long-term and non-invasive studies of intact, and therefore three-dimensional, fluorescent samples.
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Imaging via multimode optical fiber: recovery of a transmission matrix using internal references
Šiler, Martin ; Jákl, Petr ; Traegaardh, Johanna ; Ježek, Jan ; Uhlířová, Hana ; Tučková, Tereza ; Zemánek, Pavel ; Čižmár, Tomáš
Current research of life shows a great desire to study the mechanics of biological processes\ndirectly within the complexity of living organisms. However, majority of practical techniques\nused nowadays for tissue visualization can only reach depths of a few tens of micrometres as\nthe issue obscures deep imaging due to the random light scattering. Several imaging\ntechniques deal with this problems from different angels, such as optical coherence\ntomography, light sheet microscopy or structured light illumination A different and promising strategy to overcome the turbid nature of scattering tissues is to employ multimode optical fibers (MMF) as minimally invasive light guides or endoscopes to provide optical access inside. Although the theoretical description of light propagation through such fibers has been developed a long time ago it is frequently considered inadequate to describe real MMF. The inherent randomization of light propagating through MMFs is typically attributed to undetectable deviations from the ideal fiber structure. It is a commonly believed that this\nadditional chaos is unpredictable and that its influence grows with the length of the fiber.\nDespite this, light transport through MMFs remains deterministic and can be characterized by a transmission matrix (TM) which connects the intensity and phase patterns on the fiber input and output facets. Once the TM is known it can be used to create focus in any desired 3D\ncoordinates beyond the distal fiber facet, see figure 1, and perform e.g. fluorescence based\nlaser scanning microscopy or optical trapping.
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Grazing incidence interferometer for form measurement of hollow cylinders
Šarbort, Martin ; Řeřucha, Šimon ; Holá, Miroslava ; Lazar, Josef
Optical metrology of cylindrical specimens represents an interesting task in scientific and\nindustrial practice. The most precise measurement methods use principles of laser\ninterferometry where the phase difference between the reference wave and the object wave reflected from the tested surface is detected. The form measurement of hollow cylindrical tubes can be advantageously realized by an object wave with conical wavefronts generated by an axicon lens or an equivalent diffractive optical element. An axicon characterized by large apex angle forms a conical wave that fulfills the conditions of the grazing incidence, which results in suppression of the speckle noise. The previous experimental setups were relatively complex since they involved a pair of mutually reversed axicons or a pair of diffractive optical elements that transform the object wave from planar to conical and vice\nversa.
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Orbital motion from optical spin: the extraordinary momentum of circularly polarized light beams
Svak, Vojtěch ; Brzobohatý, Oto ; Šiler, Martin ; Jákl, Petr ; Zemánek, Pavel ; Simpson, Stephen Hugh
We provide a vivid demonstration of the mechanical effect of transverse spin momentum in an\noptical beam in free space. This component of the Poynting momentum was previously thought\nto be virtual, and unmeasurable. Here, its effect is revealed in the inertial motion of a probe\nparticle in a circularly polarized Gaussian trap, in vacuum. Transverse spin forces combine with\nthermal fluctuations to induce a striking range of non-equilibrium phenomena. With increasing\nbeam power we observe (i) growing departures from energy equipartition, (ii) the formation of\ncoherent, thermally excited orbits and, ultimately, (iii) the ejection of the particle from the trap.\nOur results complement and corroborate recent measurements of spin momentum in evanescent\nwaves, and extend them to a new geometry, in free space. In doing so, we exhibit fundamental,\ngeneric features of the mechanical interaction of circularly polarized light with matter. The work\nalso shows how observations of the under-damped motion of probe particles can provide detailed\ninformation about the nature and morphology of momentum flows in arbitrarily structured light\nfields as well as providing a test bed for elementary non-equilibrium statistical mechanics.
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Thickness determination of a cathodoluminescence active nanoparticles by means of Quantitative STEM imaging
Skoupý, Radim ; Krzyžánek, Vladislav
Labeling of specimens by nanoscale probes is common approach of complex biological\nsystems exploration. Namely gold nanoparticles immuno-staining is well established method\nin electron microscopy. However, if more than two label sizes are used, the differentiation of\nindividual nanoparticles becomes difficult.\nThis can be overcome by cathodoluminescence (CL) active particles – nanophosphors where\nlabels recognition is done by wavelength of emitted light. This gives a great opportunity to\nuse advanced multi probe labeling within one sample.\nThere is a huge variety of nanophosphors: green fluorescent protein, quantum dots, ZnO\nnanoparticles, organic molecules, rare earth-doped nanophosphors etc. Therefore, in order\nto choose best type of nanophosphors for a given task, it is important to measure particles\nsize/thickness, as the CL intensity is proportional to the probe volume.
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Secondary electron hyper spectral imaging in helios nanolab - mapping materials properties or artefacts?
Rodenburg, C. ; Masters, R. ; Abrams, K. ; Dapor, M. ; Krátký, Stanislav ; Mika, Filip
A link between peaks in secondary electron (SE) spectra and Electron Energy Loss Spectra\n(EELS) was shown decades ago. Also, materials properties (bulk modulus, band gap)\ncorrelate with the bulk plasmon position in EELS, and local modulus maps in carbon fibres\nhave been presented. If any features as result of plasmon decay into SE can be identified,\nSE spectroscopy combined with hyperspectral imaging could transform the SEM into a tool\nfor mapping materials properties with ground-breaking potential for nanotechnology. To\nbecome a reality, we first need to establish SE collection conditions spectra that represent a\nmaterial reliably. Second, we need to gain a better understanding of the processes involved in the SE emission processes.
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Creation of electron vortex beams using the holographic reconstruction method in a scanning electron microscope
Řiháček, Tomáš ; Horák, M. ; Schachinger, T. ; Matějka, Milan ; Mika, Filip ; Müllerová, Ilona
Electron vortex beams (EVB) were theoretically predicted in 2007 and first experimentally\ncreated in 2010. Although they attracted attention of many researchers, their\ninvestigation takes place almost solely in connection with transmission electron microscopes (TEM). On the other hand, although scanning electron microscopes (SEM) may provide some advantages for EVB applications, only little attention has been dedicated to them. Therefore, the aim of this work is to create electron vortices in SEM at energies of several keV.
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Electron optical properties of a new low-energy scanning electron microscope with beam separator
Radlička, Tomáš ; Kolařík, V. ; Oral, Martin
The low energy scanning electron microscope (SEM) which is currently at the Institute of\nScientific Instruments, suffers from low resolution and suboptimal detections systems. In the cathode lens regime, signal electrons are accelerated by the electric field between the sample and the objective lens, getting collimated. Those with low emission angles get through the bore in the BSE detector into the objective lens and cannot be detected by the available detectors now. The information about the sample provided by these electrons is lost, which limits our microscopy methods.\nThese two limitations are to be overcome with a new low-energy SEM, which was developed\nat Delong Instruments. It consists of a field emission gun with the energy width of 0.8 eV, a magnetic condenser lens, and an electrostatic triode objective lens. The acceleration voltage is 5 kV. The sample stage can be biased at up to -5 kV to provide low landing energy without strong decrease of the resolution – the effect of the cathode lens. A beam separator is placed in front of the deflection system for the detection of the signal electrons that get to the column. In a combination with standard detectors and cathode lens, it allows detecting all\nkinds of signal electrons.
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