Grant: Idea to Innovation

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is indispensable to numerous applications. Its global market size, valued at US$ 556-993 million in 2020, has expanded at an average growth rate of 9.4% in the past decade. However, existing techniques do not have sufficient imaging speeds and sequence depths to follow many irreversible materials transformations or biological processes. To overcome these limitations, we recently invented compressed ultrafast transmission electron microscopy (CUTEM). Built upon a commercially available dynamic TEM system, CUTEM will add a spatial encoding mask at the selected area aperture plane and will apply a high-voltage ramp to the pair of sweep electrodes. With these economical and simple modifications, CUTEM will enhance the temporal resolution by 1000× and the sequence depth by 100× compared with the state-of-the-art movie-mode dynamic TEM. This unprecedented imaging capability allows CUTEM to open new avenues for studying previously inaccessible physics and chemistry in materials and biology. A market study funded by NSERC and INRS has demonstrated a great interest from both TEM manufacturers and users.This NSERC I2I-Phase I project aims to further develop the CUTEM technique toward a commercial product. In total, four Aims are proposed to integrate a spatial encoding mask and a sweep pulse generator into an existing TEM machine, to improve image reconstruction speed in CUTEM, and to demonstrate single-shot nanometer-picosecond imaging using the CUTEM prototype. The established theoretical framework, mature technical foundation, and straightforward engineering procedure endow the low technical risks of this project. In turn, these merits will ensure the on-time execution and fast progress of this project and will speed up future technology transfer and device commercialization.