Open-Source Control Software for TEM

Although commendable progress has been made in theoretical predictions and high-throughput or robotic synthesis for materials discovery, experimental validations using materials characterization for such large number of materials studied remains a challenge. This is particularly true for experimental validation where spectroscopy and microscopy- based data is required at the nanoscale. Electron microscopy has an advantage of being able to collect multiple types of signals at the same time with high spatial resolution and therefore, large amounts of useful data can be collected if electron microscopy can be successfully automated. Unfortunately, this automation is difficult because of lack of a common standardized platform for controlling the electron microscope and data acquisition. This is because the manufacturers of the electron microscopes, various cameras and detectors and spectrometers use different, proprietary software that are difficult to synchronize for efficient and automated collection of imaging, diffraction and chemical data. Many necessary processes for acquiring atomic resolution images and diffraction patterns such as tilting of samples are still performed manually, slowing down the process of materials discovery and understanding of various physical phenomena. Our vision is to have an open-source platform with a user-friendly graphic user interface for control and data acquisition that can be used on electron microscopes from all the manufacturers, whereby users would be able to develop and customize different modules for efficiently acquiring different types of data such as imaging, diffraction, chemical and even information from dynamic or operando experiments. Over the last decade, open-source Python-based programs have become widely popular among scientists involved in scientific instrumentation. We propose to use Nion Swift, an open software that integrates hardware control, data acquisition, visualization, processing, and analysis and extend its capabilities by adding capabilities such as automated tilting of crystalline samples, automated acquisition of images for tomography and automated diffraction mapping. During phase 1 of the project, we plan to develop open-source programs to automate i) tilting and manipulation of samples, ii) acquisition of images for tomography, iii) diffraction mapping and test these programs on electron microscopes. Since the call is for developing an open-source program, we do not expect sales from this development. However, the user experience and the integration of the software with hardware would help in sales of our electron microscopy accessories such as in situ sample holder for the electron microscopes.