Archaeologists have found that the elements present in the pigments used on Ancestral Puebloan black-on-white painted pottery are an important descriptive attribute. They typically describe the pigments used to produce these painted designs as either carbon-based (containing primarily organic compounds) or mineral-based (containing primarily iron compounds), although in some cases these pigments are combined or “mixed”.

In-situ electron microscopy has gained considerable attention in recent years. It provides a “live” view of a material or device under study at various length scales. For example, by heating or cooling a sample one can study structural change at the atomic scale to understand the driving forces and mechanisms of phase transitions. By applying electric and magnetic fields on a ferroelectric or magnetic architecture in operation, one can directly observe how electric and magnetic domains switch, how anions and cations shift their positions, and how spins change their configuration across a domain wall, aiding the development of better electromagnetic devices. In the study of photovoltaic devices and junctions, a major challenge is to directly correlate light-induced electric currents with local structural inhomogeneities and dynamics. Such a capability would allow us to evaluate the performance of individual p-n junctions and to improve optoelectronic efficiency.

MICRO, an acronym for Microscopy In Curriculum—Research Outreach, is the outreach program for middle schools sponsored by the Microscopy Society of America (MSA). Middle schools are the battleground for minds of young people because this is an important time for students to make decisions about whether to take science classes in high school. Unfortunately, the majority of middle school teachers are not adequately prepared to teach science; therefore, additional exposure to science may encourage students' interest.

The development of laser-assisted atom probe tomography (APT) and specimen preparation techniques using a focused ion beam equipped with high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has significantly advanced the characterization of semiconductor devices by APT. The capability of APT to map out elements in devices at the atomic scale with high sensitivity meets the characterization requirements of semiconductor devices such as the determination of elemental distributions for each device region.

Atom probe tomography (APT) has significantly contributed to our understanding and development of structural materials through the detailed analysis of solute behavior, cluster formation, precipitate evolution, and interfacial and grain boundary chemistry. Whether one is concerned with light alloys, Ni-based superalloys, or steels, the design objectives are similar: developing alloys with optimum properties (strength, toughness, ductility, fatigue resistance, creep strength) through controlled precipitation, grain structure, solute state, and combination of phases. Performance in service, through microstructural stability and resistance to degradation, is also a major design criterion for the development of novel materials.

This year marks the eighty-fifth anniversary of the discovery of electron diffraction. In addition to its important role in materials characterization, electron diffraction contributed substantially to several Nobel Prizes, to foundations of quantum mechanics, and to the development of the theory of covalent bonding in organic chemistry. What follows is a personal narrative describing the development of this technique.

The limitation of spatial resolution in orientation imaging via electron backscattered diffraction analysis in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) makes it difficult to investigate the microstructure of nanocrystalline materials. The use of the recently developed transmission electron microscope (TEM) based product, known as ASTAR, offers the possibility of reliable orientation/phase mapping with a spatial resolution below 3 nm. In ASTAR, a nanoprobe electron beam is scanned over the specimen, and spot diffraction patterns are collected. The electron beam is precessed to reduce dynamical effects and improve pattern quality. Using template matching, the diffraction patterns are indexed automatically.

Microscopy & Microanalysis 2012 will celebrate our past achievements, present our current research, and inspire us about the future of our field. The meeting will be held in Phoenix, Arizona from July 29–August 2, 2012.

Like that nourishing Music City confection, this year's Microscopy & Microanalysis Meeting, held August 7–11 in Nashville, was a GooGoo Cluster of top-notch science and networking. M&M is the annual meeting for the Microscopy Society of America, the Microanalysis Society, and the International Metallographic Society. It is the premier conference for microscopists working in the physical, life, and analytical sciences. This year's conference attracted 1,607 scientific attendees from 35 countries; the total number of attendees was 2,629. The perennially successful exhibitors' floor was again noteworthy with 113 companies providing the opportunity to wander 362 booths (9% more than the previous year) occupying 36,200 square feet with state-of-the-art instrumentation and publications.

The transmission electron microscope (TEM) is well known as the technique of choice for visualization and measurement of features at near-atomic length scales, particularly for semiconductor devices. For example, a critical measurement of interest may be the thickness of the gate oxide in a transistor. The accuracy of these measurements is based on calibrated distances at each magnification. The term accuracy conveys the extent to which the measurement minimizes the difference between the measured value and the true value. The associated term precision is the closeness of agreement in a series of measurements locating the end-points of a measurement line. This article describes a method that increases the accuracy of metrology measurements applied to a high-resolution TEM image.

Considered a child prodigy, William Rowan Hamilton could read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek at the tender age of five and had undertaken the study of at least six other languages before his twelfth birthday. The native of Dublin, Ireland, lived with and was educated by an uncle who was an Anglican priest, because his father's legal career required him to spend much of his time in England. In his youth, Hamilton was introduced to Zerah Colburn, an American mathematical prodigy who exhibited his amazing calculating dexterity for entertainment. Competitive bouts of computations between the young men apparently inspired Hamilton to increase his knowledge of mathematics, and he embarked on a course of study that included the works of Euclid, Clairaut, Lloyd, Newton, Lagrange, and Laplace. By 1822, his mathematical abilities had advanced to such an extent that he discovered an important error in Laplace's treatise Celestial Mechanics, a feat that garnered him the attention of the Royal Astronomer of Ireland, John Brinkley, who he would shortly thereafter replace.

Microscopy Today congratulates the third annual group of Innovation Award winners. The ten innovations described below move several microscopy techniques forward: atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, light microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, electron microscopy, and analytical microscopy. These innovations will make imaging and analysis more powerful, more flexible, more productive, and easier to accomplish.

Microscopists demand better performance from their electron microscopes with every new instrument. With the advancement of new instrument technologies, better images, higher resolution, more precise analysis, and faster throughput are all benefits that are expected of expensive purchases. Still, in many cases, a well-known problem detrimentally affects the quality of results: specimen contamination.

Polymers are organic materials, and most of the preparation methods for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are much the same as for biological specimens. Bulk samples are cut in the ultramicrotome, and latex particles are dropped onto a Formvar-coated grid. However, the staining possibilities of polymers are limited. Polymers mainly consist of saturated hydrocarbon, and unlike biomaterial there are few reactive groups for staining. This has two consequences for the microscopist: it is difficult to obtain contrast, and the sample is very beam-sensitive. Biological samples are also organic material and sensitive to the beam, but the staining process converts them into materials that are usually stable to the beam.

Leeuwenhoek was born in Delft, Holland on October 24, 1632. His father was a basket maker, and although Leeuwenhoek did not receive a university education and was not considered a scholar, his curiosity and skill allowed him to make some of the most important discoveries in the history of biology.

James Clerk Maxwell was one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for the formulation of the theory of electromagnetism and in making the connection between light and electromagnetic waves. He also made significant contributions in the areas of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering. He is considered by many as the father of modern physics.

When electrons pass through the electromagnetic lenses in a transmission electron microscope (TEM), they follow a spiral path that results in image rotation. In many TEMs, the image or diffraction pattern that appears at the final imaging plane has therefore suffered a significant rotation compared to the actual specimen. The extent of the rotation is equal to the sum of the contributions from each lens. In some recent instruments an extra lens is built into the column to compensate for these rotations. In the case of a scanning TEM (STEM), where the image is created by scanning a focused beam on the specimen, the orientation of the image to the specimen is fixed but can be controlled electronically by the computer processor.

James Clerk Maxwell was one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century. He is best known for the formulation of the theory of electromagnetism and for making the connection between light and electromagnetic waves. He also made significant contributions in the areas of physics, mathematics, astronomy, and engineering. He is considered by many to be the father of modern physics.

I think most of you probably know me. I tend to be rather vocal about things, whether it be on the Microscopy Listserver or through the years on problems of facility management, so I'm going to very briefly go over some of my experiences. I direct a core facility that has independent users, has a service component, is basically life sciences, but we do imaging for everybody. They can be from civil engineering, vet school, aeronautics, chemistry…who knows what will come in the door. So, some of the challenge has been to obtain major instrumentation that is versatile enough to handle a broad, broad range of users, but is initially justified based on a critical core research group. This is integral for obtaining any type of federal funding. So, we need new instrumentation for numerous reasons.

Marie Alfred Cornu was born in Orleans, France, on March 6, 1841, and was educated at the École Polytechnique and the École des Mines. He became employed as a physics professor at the École Polytechnique in 1867, a position he maintained for the rest of his life. Cornu made a wide variety of contributions to the fields of optics and spectroscopy but is most noted for significantly increasing the accuracy of contemporary calculations of the speed of light.