Since its introduction in 2005, the Titan's superior product design and proven ability to deliver ground-breaking results have made it the preferred scanning/transmission electron microscope (s/TEM) of leading researchers around the world. The FEI Titan™ S/TEM family includes the world's most powerful, commercially-available S/TEMs: the Titan™ 80-300, Titan3™, Titan Krios™ and Titan™ ETEM (environmental TEM). Built around a revolutionary 80-300 kV electron column, all Titans enable sub-Angstrom, atomic scale discovery and exploration in both TEM and STEM modes over a wide range of materials and operating conditions. The newest member of the family, Titan ETEM, extends the capabilities of the Titan by permitting gas in the sample chamber (up to 4 kPa) along with sample heating (up to 1000°C), thus allowing researchers to investigate interactions between the sample and its gaseous environment.
Titan Family [PDF 332KB]
Advantages and Capabilities
The Titan is the first and only S/TEM designed to fully realize the benefits of corrected S/TEM. Aberration correction breaks through the fundamental optical limitations of magnetic lenses, but requires equally fundamental changes in system design to achieve the stability required for ultra high resolution imaging and analysis. The Titan's extra wide column was specifically designed to give the mechanical stability required due to the added height of probe and image correctors. Its proprietary constant power lenses and advanced power supplies provide the necessary thermal and electronic stability.
The Titan Krios is the tool for obtaining fast, fully automated, high content three dimensional information about biological cells down to the scale resolving individual molecular complexes. It perfectly complements the cellular scale observations available from light microscopy and the atomic scale analysis provided by NMR and X-Ray diffraction. Advanced automation makes analysis fast and easy, increasing experimental productivity and enabling the high-volume analysis needed for complex biological systems.
The Titan3 includes a newly designed base to provide ultra stable support for a column with both image and probe correctors and a monochromator. An environmental enclosure effectively isolates the column from external interferences and at the same time relaxes facility requirements and infrastructure costs. High speed remote control removes even the operator from the instrument environment, a change that will be welcomed by most operators. A larger pole piece gap, permitted by the corrected optics, brings new flexibility to high resolution TEM applications such as tomography, cryo TEM, environmental TEM and dynamic experiments. Field upgrades that permit the addition of correctors or a monochromator to an existing column provide budgetary flexibility as well.
The Titan ETEM's ability to image the sample in a controlled gaseous environment allows chemists and materials scientists look directly at the fundamental, atomic scale mechanisms of gas-solid and phase-change reactions, including carbon nanotube growth, crystal nucleation and growth, heterogeneous catalysis and many other economically-significant processes. Catalysts, for instance, are critical in the production of fuels, reduction of environmentally harmful combustion products and generally throughout the chemical industry. FEI pioneered the development of the ESEM (environmental scanning electron microscope) and now the ETEM extends that expertise to offer the first and only purpose-built solution for studying in situ dynamic gas-solid chemistry in a TEM. Potential users may be chemists, concerned with the chemical reaction itself; materials scientists, interested in the effects of a harsh environment on a new material; or they may be involved in myriad other disciplines. ETEM goes beyond the ability of conventional TEM, allowing researchers to observe in situ dynamic processes, with the material of interest surrounded by the gaseous reactants, enabling experiments that mimic the conditions encountered in real life. With its ability to deliver atomic scale imaging and analysis on a stable, easy to use platform, the Titan provides today's leading researchers with access to a whole new world of investigation where many of tomorrow's most important discoveries will surely be made.
Applications with Titan
The Titan family of microscopy tools are excellent performers for applications similar to the following: