DELMIC Microscopy Blog

Cathodoluminescence has established itself as a powerful technique for measuring and understanding various properties of light. In the previous blog posts, we explained how intensity mapping can be used to measure amplitude of the electromagnetic waves, hyperspectral CL for wavelength measurements, angle-resolved CL for wave vector, and polarimetry for polarization. These properties of light are not static, which means that there is time dynamics associated with light, which can also be studied. How? Keep reading!

One of the fastest and most straightforward techniques for understanding the composition and structure of geological samples is intensity mapping. What is it exactly? This imaging mode allows quickly obtaining cathodoluminescence contrast of the sample by acquiring CL intensity for every beam position. 

When adding the new equipment to the lab, it is important to consider a lot of various factors. One of such factors is how much experimental freedom the new system can offer. Not only it has to be configured specifically to cater your scientific needs, but also, ideally, it has to be modular in order to change as your experiments evolve. 

For the past few weeks we have been focusing on possibilities of cathodoluminescence imaging of the SPARC CL detector. In this post we describe hyperspectral cathodoluminescence, which is a powerful tool for wavelength spectrum visualisation. 

What is spectrally and angular-resolved(also known as energy-momentum) CL?

In the last blog post we explained angle-resolved cathodoluminescence imaging, a technique which is used to acquire angular profiles and gain a better understanding of materials' optical properties. The imaging technique that we are focusing on this week combines information acquired with angle-resolved imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy. This technique is called Lens-scanning energy-momentum(LSEK) Imaging, or full Angle-Resolved Spectroscopy, and it allows collecting a full emission spectrum for each emission angle. This new imaging technique is now available with the SPARC system. Keep reading if you would like to understand how it works and what results can be achieved.

In our last blog post we presented all six cathodoluminescence imaging modes that can be used with our SPARC detector to analyse and observe samples. In this blog post we are going to focus on angle-resolved cathodoluminescence, a technique which allows to create angular profiles of the samples.

Cathodoluminescence is a great tool for obtaining valuable information about the properties of a sample. This data can help researchers and developers get a better understanding of possible defects, efficiency of the material and other properties. 

The SPARC cathodoluminescence detector has 6 imaging modes which can enhance your research and provide you with an important information about your samples. Keep reading if you would like to know what exactly is possible with these modes!

Rare-earth elements, also known as REE, are a group of elements, consisting of scandium, yttrium and 15 lanthanide elements. In the last decades there has been a significant growth in the number of devices that use rare-earth metals. They can be found in a wide range of technological areas and are commonly used in lighting and displays, CT scanners and electron microscopes, (fiber) lasers and amplifiers, anti-cancer agents, fluorescent markers, batteries, magnets and catalysists. Rare-earth elements are crucial for modern-day technology and it is important to study rare-earth doped materials at nanoscale to understand them better.

If you are working in the field of photovoltaics or optoelectronics, you know that perovskites, a group of materials that have ABX₃ composition and a perovskite structure, have gained quite a lot of interest due to their exceptional performance in solar cell, light-emitting diode, laser, and water splitting devices.