Comptes Rendus Physique

Bingsen Zhang

Dang Sheng Su

Using electron beams to investigate catalytic materials

Etienne Snoeck

Gustaaf Van Tendeloo

C. R. Physique 15 (2014) 281–284Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Comptes Rendus Physique
www.sciencedirect.com
Electron microscopy / Microscopie électronique
Networking strategies of the microscopy community for
improved utilisation of advanced instruments: (3) Two
European initiatives to support TEM infrastructures and
promote electron microscopy over Europe, ESTEEM
(2006–2011) and ESTEEM 2 (2012–2016)
Stratégies de mise en réseau élaborées par les communautés de la
microscopie électronique pour optimiser l’utilisation des nouvelles
plateformes instrumentales : (3) Deux initiatives européennes pour
soutenir les infrastructures MET et promouvoir la microscopie électronique
en Europe, ESTEEM (2006–2011) and ESTEEM 2 (2012–2016)
Etienne Snoeck a,∗, Gustaaf Van Tendeloo b
a CEMES–CNRS, 29, rue Jeanne-Marvig, 30155 Toulouse cedex, France
b EMAT, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, B-2020 Antwerp, Belgium
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Available online 24 January 2014
Keywords:
Transmission electron microscopy
Materials science
Collaborative research
Infrastructure
Europe
ESTEEM
Mots-clés :
Microscopie électronique à transmission
Science des matériaux
Recherche collaborative
Infrastructure
Europe
ESTEEM
The ESTEEM consortium of electron microscopy laboratories for materials science and
solid-state physics has been created as an EU-supported delocalized infrastructure (I3)
to bring together the major electron microscopy centres in Europe. Its main objectives
were to develop networking, to offer transnational access to these centres with specialized
and complementary techniques and skills and to upgrade in close collaboration different
technical and methodological aspects such as tomography, spectroscopy, holography,
detectors, and specimen holders. These efforts were aimed to strengthen the position of
European microscopy and to generate new technologies potentially of high relevance in
many domains identified as strategic. Following the success of the first program, ESTEEM
has been reconducted in 2012 for four more years with an enlarged set of partners.
© 2014 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
r é s u m é
Le consortium de microscopie électronique dédiée à la science des matériaux et à la
physique de la matière condensée (ESTEEM) a été créé comme infrastructure européenne
délocalisée (I3) en regroupant quelques centres majeurs en Europe. Trois objectifs
principaux lui étaient dévolus : développer des actions de mise en réseau, offrir un accès
aux équipements spécialisés dans ces centres regroupant des techniques et des expertises
complémentaires, et développer en collaboration étroite certains aspects technologiques
ou méthodologiques, tels la tomographie, les spectroscopies, l’holographie, les détecteurs
et des porte-échantillons spécifiques. Ces efforts avaient pour but de fortifier la position
* Corresponding author.1631-0705/$ – see front matter © 2014 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.crhy.2013.12.002
282 E. Snoeck, G. Van Tendeloo / C. R. Physique 15 (2014) 281–284de la microscopie européenne et de générer de nouvelles technologies d’importance pour
un certain nombre de domaines stratégiques. Le premier programme ayant été jugé très
positif, l’infrastructure ESTEEM2 a été reconduite pour une période de quatre ans à partir
de 2012.
© 2014 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
1. The ESTEEM project (2006–2011)
In 2006, within its 6th Framework Program, the European Commission (EC) has decided to support a five-year
(2006–2011) IP3 project entitled ESTEEM (Enabling Science and Technology through European Electron Microscopy) ded-
icated to transmission electron microscopy (http://esteem.ua.ac.be/). The ESTEEM consortium grouped 11 of the major
electron microscopy laboratories in Europe over Belgium, UK, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Spain, Slovenia, and Poland.
The main goals of the ESTEEM project were to promote and develop electron microscopy capabilities over Europe and to
offer Transnational Access (TA) to the most advanced electron microscopes to the academic and industrial communities. As
a result, during the five-year duration of the project, 4,224 days of access to advanced TEM equipment have been provided
to 780 users coming from all over Europe through ESTEEM Transnational Access.
Besides facilitating the access to advanced TEM equipment, the European Union aims at supporting workshops and
schools to enhance the number of TEM users of the next generation and to train them in the use of quantitative and
advanced TEM techniques. ESTEEM has then supported 17 TEM workshops attended by over 700 European participants.
Joint Researches Activities (JRAs) were also part of the ESTEEM project with the aim of supporting progress in the field
of electron microscopy for the benefit of TEM users. The general JRAs themes were to improve three-dimensional imaging of
nanoparticles down to the sub-nanometer, and possibly atomic, scale, to push the limits of chemical and electronic mapping
in nanostructured materials, to develop improved detection in electron microscopy for rapid acquisition of images and
spectra and to develop tools for nanomanipulation experiments inside the electron microscope and apply these tools for the
study of dynamic systems. ESTEEM’s JRAs were then focused on electron tomography, electron spectroscopy for mapping
electronic structure, holography for mapping fields, new electron detectors developments and new TEM capabilities for
in-situ experiments. The supported collaborative research activities between ESTEEM partners resulted in a large number of
new developments. Many innovative methodologies and tools were indeed developed and cutting-edge results obtained by
the ESTEEM consortium. Some of them can be highlighted, as the new algorithm for discrete tomography reconstruction [1],
the first mapping of plasmons in nanostructures (Fig. 1) [2], the discovery of the “dark-field electron holography method”
for mapping strain fields [3], the creation of vortex electron beams [4], the combined use of holography and tomography
for mapping 3D electrostatic field in devices [5] ...
These innovative results and progress in TEM techniques were transferred to the whole TEM community and most of
these advanced methods developed though ESTEEM are now available for any TEM user worldwide. Within the five years of
the ESTEEM activities, 256 papers have been published and 24 patents have been registered by the ESTEEM consortium.
2. From ESTEEM to ESTEEM2 (2012–2016)
A year after the ESTEEM project ended, the EU decided to support its continuation through an infrastructure (I3) four-
year project within its FP7 program: ESTEEM2 (2012–2016) (http://esteem2.eu/). Compared to ESTEEM(1), the ESTEEM2
consortium has been extended to new partners in Germany, Sweden, Austria, and Spain, and two SMEs. The general goals of
ESTEEM2 are similar to the ESTEEM(1) objectives: 1) to provide open access to the most advanced equipment to the widest
possible academic and industrial research community; 2) to improve and develop new advanced TEM techniques for the
benefit of users, and, as an additional goal, 3) to create a sustainable infrastructure after ESTEEM2 ends. See Fig. 2.
Regrouping the equipment of 13 academic partners, European users have access, through Transnational Access (TA), to 28
of the most advanced microscopes including three double corrected microscopes, several monochromated probe corrected
microscopes, few dedicated TEM for various type of in situ TEM experiments, a dedicated probe-corrected STEM devoted
to EELS experiments, a cold-FEG microscope dedicated to holography and eight FIBs for sample preparation. About 3 400
access days are proposed to the ESTEEM2 equipment for the 4-year duration of the project.
After the five years of active developments of ESTEEM(1) in Joint Research Activities, the new consortium has decided
to focus the ESTEEM2 JRAs on five main subjects slightly different from the previous JRAs with a similar aim to develop
advanced quantitative TEM methods for structural, chemical, electronics, and field measurements, and to transfer these TEM
improvements among partners for the benefit of the users. The first JRA concerns “Quantitative electron diffraction” devel-
opments both thanks to new electron precession capabilities but also through CBED and coherent diffraction. The second is
devoted to “Imaging” both in high-resolution STEM and TEM and EFTEM. It involves the development of methods for quan-
tification and interpretation of (S)TEM images acquired using state-of-the-art instrumentation and techniques. The third JRA
is dedicated to advanced “Electron spectroscopies”. Its goal is to develop new, versatile EELS techniques and methods and in
particular for the study of magnetism, nano-optics and plasmonics, all of which have potential industrial applications within
EU industry. The fourth is focused on the “3D nanometrology”. The objective of this JRA is to obtain precise and quantitative
measurements of properties, including chemical composition, magnetic fields and strain distributions, in 3D and in some
E. Snoeck, G. Van Tendeloo / C. R. Physique 15 (2014) 281–284 283Fig. 1. (Colour online.) Size-dependent mapping of plasmons in silver nanoprisms. EELS spectra acquired at a corner (A), the middle point of an edge (B) and
the centre (C) of (a) a 97-nm edge-long (thickness 4 nm) (b) and a 176-nm edge-long (thickness 6 nm) nanoprisms, respectively.
Reprinted with permission from Nano Letter 2010, 10, 902. © 2010 The American Chemical Society.
Fig. 2. (Colour online.) The academic and industrial partners involved in ESTEEM 2.
284 E. Snoeck, G. Van Tendeloo / C. R. Physique 15 (2014) 281–284cases at the atomic scale, in order to provide a better suite of methods that can be applied by academic and industrial users.
This JRA combines holography and tomography developments including design and application of new tomography holders,
acquisition schemes and reconstruction algorithms. The fifth JRA is slightly different from the previous ones and is devoted
to “Time-resolved transmission electron microscopy”. It includes the design and development of new fast electron detectors
to provide dynamical studies at the millisecond time resolution and of a new hybrid instrument combining a femtosecond
laser source and a transmission electron microscope based on a field emission source.
As for ESTEEM(1), besides the TA and JRA activities, ESTEEM2 aims at promoting TEM over a scientific community even
larger through the organisation of TEM schools and workshops, the creation of fully open data bases with free TEM software,
recipes for dedicated sample preparation procedures for “special” objects (hybrids, soft materials. . . ), etc.
ESTEEM(1) has been very successful both in term of advanced TEM developments achieved within this program and in
the number of external users who came through TA to perform advanced TEM experiences with the consortium equipment.
The academic and industrial communities have largely benefited from this European initiative for the development of their
own projects as well as the European “TEM community” which get the opportunity to tighten their connections and col-
laborative projects and then pushed forward TEM into new innovative topics. These successes drove the EU to support the
continuation of ESTEEM(1) with the main goal of giving to Europe the most advanced TEM tools to help the scientific and
industrial communities to push forward the capabilities of Europe in science and (nano)technology.
References
[1] K.J. Batenburg, S. Bals, J. Sijbers, C. Kubel, P.A. Midgley, J.C. Hernandez, U. Kaiser, E.R. Encina, E.A. Coronado, G. Van Tendeloo, 3D imaging of nanomaterials
by discrete tomography, Ultramicroscopy 109 (2009) 730–740.
[2] J. Nelayah, M. Kociak, O. Stéphan, N. Geuquet, L. Henrard, F.J. de Abajo, I. Pastoriza-Santos, L.M. Liz-Marzan, C. Colliex, Two-dimensional quasistatic
stationary short range surface plasmons in flat nanoprisms, Nano Lett. 10 (2010) 902–907.
[3] M. Hytch, F. Houdelier, F. Hue, E. Snoeck, Nanoscale holographic interferometry for strain measurements in electronic devices, Nature 453 (2008) 1086.
[4] J. Verbeeck, H. Tian, P. Schattschneider, Production and application of electron vortex beams, Nature 467 (2010) 201–304.
[5] P.A. Midgley, R. Dunin-Borkowski, Electron tomography and holography in materials science, Nat. Mater. 8 (2009) 271–280.


Networking strategies of the microscopy community for improved utilisation of advanced instruments: (3) Two European initiatives to support TEM infrastructures and promote electron microscopy over Europe, ESTEEM (2006–2011) and ESTEEM 2 (2012–2016)

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Romain Pascaud

Francisco Pizarro

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Juslan Lo

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Non-thermal plasma potentialities for microwave device reconfigurability

Dossier Sommaire

Editorial Board

Éric Maire

Jérôme Adrien

Clémence Petit

Structural characterization of solid foams

Cesar Pay Gómez

An Pang Tsai

Crystal chemistry and chemical order in ternary quasicrystals and approximants

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Using electron beams to investigate catalytic materials

Networking strategies of the microscopy community for improved utilisation of advanced instruments: (3) Two European initiatives to support TEM infrastructures and promote electron microscopy over Europe, ESTEEM (2006–2011) and ESTEEM 2 (2012–2016)

Non-thermal plasma potentialities for microwave device reconfigurability

Dossier Sommaire

Editorial Board

Structural characterization of solid foams

Editorial Board

Crystal chemistry and chemical order in ternary quasicrystals and approximants

Editorial Board

Interferometric methods for mapping static electric and magnetic fields

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