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Molecular Foundry

HIGHLIGHTSSuccessful Demonstration of Fastest Electron Detector Ever Made
March 17, 2019

The 4D Camera (4D = Dynamic Diffraction Direct Detector) CMOS Active Pixel Sensor consists of a 576 x 576 array of 10 μm pixels (left). At right is a single 11 microsecond frame acquired through an amplitude shadow mask at 200 keV taken on the TEAM 0.5 at the NCEM Facility of the Molecular Foundry.

Scientific Achievement

Successful installation and testing of the new 4D Camera that can produce continuous electron images every 11 microseconds. That’s about 60X faster than what was possible with previous high speed electron detectors.

Unique Advances Enabled by the 4D Camera

87,000 frames/second, optimized for high dynamic range through speed and sensitivity

Potential Impact of the New Capability

  • Acquisition of pixelated images during high resolution STEM imaging without slowing down the electron probe, leading to real-time phase contrast ptychographic imaging
  • Drift mitigation and improvements in signal/noise for beam-sensitive samples (ie- biomolecules)
  • Breakthroughs in nanoscale strain mapping and quantification of materials using scanning electron diffraction imaging methods at high resolution
  • All data will be streamed in real time via a 400 Gbps 1 km optical link to the Cori supercomputer at NERSC for inline processing and analysis.
Contributors: Jim Ciston, Ian J. Johnson, Brent R. Draney, Peter Ercius, Erin Fong, Azriel Goldschmidt, John M. Joseph, Jason R. Lee, Alexander Mueller, Colin Ophus, Ashwin Selvarajan, David E. Skinner, Thorsten Stezelberger, Craig S. Tindall, Andrew M. Minor, and Peter Denes

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