News

The new application note, prepared by our application specialist Toon Coenen, focuses on the methylammonium lead halide perovskite materials. In our previous application note we already described exceptional performance of perovskite materials in solar cells, light-emitting diodes and lasers. 
While most of the time perovskites are grown in a more traditional shape of thin-films and nanocrystals, it was discovered recently that with the use of carbonate salts perovskite materials can take a large variety of complex 3D shapes. 

The Time-Resolved Cathodoluminescence project, an outcome of collaboration between Delmic, AMOLF Institute and Thermo Fisher, resulted in the creation of two new microscopes that can take optical images at the nanoscale, with a time resolution down to 1 ps. 

For the last few months Delmic has been preparing for the biggest microscopy event of the year: the 19th International Microscopy Congress, which will take place in Sydney, Australia, from 9th to 14th of September. 

Imaging biological samples can be pretty tiring and difficult, especially when the data has to be acquired with different microscopes. Transferring the sample, acquiring data and overlaying the images can be extremely laborious. Correlative light and electron microscopy (also known as CLEM) is an imaging technique that eliminates these challenges by combining light microscope with a scanning electron microscope, making the process of image acquisition and overlaying seamless and user-friendly. 

On 31^st of May Delmic together with AMOLF Institute in Amsterdam held the workshop “Cathodoluminescence for nanophotonics”, which gathered participants from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, UK and Ireland. The workshop focused on cathodoluminescence imaging, the SPARC cathodoluminescence detector and various possibilities for the research in the fields of photonics and nanoplasmonics. In the evening the participants and the speakers enjoyed a dinner in the center of Amsterdam.

In the last few years, LEDs (light emitting diodes) have proved to be the future of the lighting systems, due to their efficiency, brightness, and longer lifetime. However, the systematic efficiency drop in the yellow-green region, also known as the “green gap”, is a fundamental limitation for the LEDs and semiconductor laser devices.

The researchers from the TU Delft, our close collaborator, have used cathodoluminescence lifetime measurements with the SECOM, to shed light on the optical properties of nanolasers. The results are presented in the new paper Nanoscale Imaging of Light-Matter Coupling Inside Metal-Coated Cavities with a Pulsed Electron Beam, which was published in Nano Letters last month. The study holds value for the field of nanophotonics as it demonstrates that the position of the material within the nanolaser influences its efficiency.  

A new article was written by the researchers from the Francis Crick Institute, Delmic’s close collaborator. The paper, published in Journal of Microscopy, explains the new method of automated data acquisition for integrated light and electron microscopy. More specifically, the authors present a scheme for automated detection of fluorescent cells within thin resin sections for following electron microscopy imaging. This method aims to speed up the process of data acquisition and reduce the data rates.

Over the last few months, DELMIC’s team has grown. Since the beginning of 2018 DELMIC has hired five more employees. Our team is becoming more and more international and we are very excited about it! 

If you are working in the fields of nanophotonics, materials science or geology, it is very likely that you have heard or read about cathodoluminescence detection. If you have not, we are giving you the chance to learn more about it!

Everything you need to know about cathodoluminescence (CL) and cathodoluminescence imaging with the SPARC in one infographic.