DELMIC Microscopy Blog

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.

In the last few decades, electronic devices have become more and more important in our lives, and semiconductors are a crucial part of this technology innovation. A semiconductor is a generic term for materials, normally solid chemical elements, that can conduct current, but only partly. A semiconductor has a conductivity which is between that of an insulator with almost no conductivity, and a conductor with almost full conductivity.

One of the applications of cathodoluminescence is studying optical nanoantennas. But what are they exactly? These devices, made usually from noble metals (gold or silver, for example) or from semiconductor materials, are capable of amplifying and manipulating light on the nanoscale.
Dr. Ruggero Verre is one the Delmic’s oldest customers: he is a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Applied Physics at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. Optical nanoantennas is the focus of his research group, headed by Prof. Mikael Käll.

One way to study the properties of the antennas and understand how they work is by characterizing them with cathodoluminescence. The group of Ruggero Verre has been using the SPARC cathodoluminescence detector to study them, and they have achieved some interesting results.

What is a time-resolved cathodoluminescence? How can it be applied in different fields? In the new video Toon Coenen, application specialist at Delmic, gives an explanation of this imaging technique.

In this short video about the SPARC our application specialist Toon Coenen talks about the main three advantages of this cathodoluminescence system. What are the possibilies of the SPARC and why cathodoluminescence is gaining poplarity in various scientific fields? Find out from the video!