Special Issue "Low Voltage Electron Microscopy"

Guest Editor
Dr. Lawrence F. Drummy
Air Force Research Laboratory, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, AFRL/RXBN, 2941 Hobson Way, Bldg 654 WPAFB, OH 45433, USA
E-Mail: lawrence.drummy@wpafb.af.mil
Phone: +1 937-904-5093
Fax: +1 601-510-2682
Interests: nanocomposites; organic-inorganic interfaces; structural proteins: peptide-material interactions; nanostructured dielectrics; metamaterials; organic electronics; high resolution transmission electron microscopy; analytical electron microscopy; scanning transmission electron microscopy; electron tomography; low voltage electron microscopy

Dear Colleagues,

As materials systems become increasingly complex and devices reduce in size, characterization techniques with the ability to directly image materials with high resolution and high contrast are needed. Low voltage electron microscopy has seen tremendous growth in recent years due to its potential to resolve morphological details at the meso-, molecular, and atomic scale. This growth is attributed to increased scattering contrast at low voltage, increased spatial resolution when used in conjunction with certain analytical techniques, and the potential from decreased beam damage from certain classes of materials. As a secondary but important benefit, with reduced voltage typically comes decreased instrument cost and footprint, and increased accessibility for laboratories around the world, thus opening new opportunities.

With new generations of spherical aberration correctors, atomic lattice imaging with a resolution of 2 Å at 20 kV accelerating voltage is now possible. Reduced beam damage and increased contrast are major motivations for this work. In conjunction with the increased scattering contrast associated with imaging at low-voltage, however, comes with an increased severity of beam damage for broad classes of materials (polymers, organic molecular solids, biological materials). As such, electron beam damage will be an important topic in this special issue. This special issue will be open to submissions on both scanning and transmission low voltage electron microscopy, as well as analytical techniques, experimental demonstrations of electron scattering theory and fundamentals, and applications of low voltage electron microscopy.

Dr. Lawrence F. Drummy
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs).

• Low voltage (LV)
• LV scanning electron microscopy
• LV transmission electron microscopy
• LV scanning transmission electron microscopy
• X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy
• electron energy loss spectroscopy
• electron beam damage