MRI Consortium: Development of Dynamic PicoProbe for Multi-Modal, Multi-Dimensional HyperSpectral Imaging of Soft/Hard Matter and Interfaces in Environmental Media

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award by both the Division of Materials Research (DMR) in the Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (MPS) and the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) in the Directorate for Engineering (ENG) supports the development of a nanoscale metrological resource, the Dynamic PicoProbe, to enable quantitative investigations of liquid/solid/hard/soft matter interfaces for time-resolved high-resolution in-situ environmental observations using advanced analytical electron microscopy. Funding this instrument development allows advancement in several areas relevant to engineering and materials research with applications in the water-energy nexus, catalysis, quantum electronics, bioelectronics, cancer therapy, and protein engineering.

The project creates a national user-accessible resource and offers unique opportunities to train students, postdocs, novice and experienced researchers through collaborative investigations. Central to this instrument-development project is training next-generation instrumentalists with targeted technical and professional skillsets critical to their career advancements.

The Dynamic PicoProbe instrument features new structured illumination optics and machine learning/artificial intelligence analysis software for real-time data processing to improve temporal measurement capabilities at the nanoscale in environmental media by one order of magnitude. Both optics and software are integrated with state-of-the-art detectors into an existing best-of-class analytical microscope.

The project leads to an electron-optical beam line having the elemental sensitivity (< 1% minimum mass fraction) and image resolution (< 0.1 nm) required to capture localized and individual dynamic events (< 3 ms) at solid-liquid or solid-gas interfaces. Such measurements are critical to advance multiple frontiers in science and engineering, such as engineered nanomaterials, organic/inorganic heterostructures, biointerfaces, macromolecular complexes, and quantum electronics.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.