MACLEAY MUSEUM
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
Welcome to the Show! • Update from the Building Site • Zeiss Ultra Plus
Lands at the EMU • An SEM in Backpack Format • Welcome Dr Rebecca
Powles • Research Highlight of an EMU User
Welcome to the Show!
Small Matters – Exploring the World
of Microscopy
01 August 2008 to 01 February 2009
In 2008, the Electron Microscope Unit is celebrating its golden jubilee, and to mark the occasion we are organising several special events
throughout the second half of this year.
MACLEAY MUSEUM
The first event coming to fruitition is the exhibition ‘Small Matters – Exploring the World of
Microscopy’ which is a cooperation between the
University’s Macleay Museum and the Electron
Microscope Unit. The exhibition offers insights
into the hidden beauty and complexity of the
world around us as seen through the scientific
MACLEAY MUSEUM
microscope. Open to the public and free of
charge, Small Matters gives schools, students,
staff and families an introduction to microscopy
as a gateway to the beauty and complexity of our
world; the exhibition includes a basic introduction to modern microscopy techniques and the
underlying scientific principles.
Surprisingly for most, research using microscopy
AN EXHIBITION CELEBRATING
FIFTY YEARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY’S
ELECTRON MICROSCOPE UNIT
1 AUGUST 2008
TO 1 FEBRUARY 2009
and microanalysis influences our lives on a daily
basis. From the food we eat, to the clothes
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 1
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
we wear, from the way we treat cancer to the
also be on show in the Macleay as part of Small
selection of metals to make cars – many of
Matters. Further, there is a hands-on area with
the blessings of our modern world would not
light microscopes and a wide range of specimen
have been possible without the enabling power
for the visitors to examine. Small Matters will
of advanced microscopy. And meeting many
serve as a platform for a number of lectures and
of today’s scientific, medical and technologi-
tours throughout the rest of the year. Please visit
cal grand challenges requires innovations in
www.emu.usyd.edu.au and follow the Golden
microscopy. The exhibition covers the basic
Jubilee links. On these pages we will list ad-
principles of light microscopy, scanning electron
ditional talks and new information as soon as it
microscopy, transmission electron microscopy,
becomes available.
X-ray microtomography, structural & elemental
analysis methods, and atom probe tomography
This exhibition has something for everyone, so
as well as the different specimen preparations
take your family, colleagues and friends, and
these techniques require. explore the exciting word of microscopy!
Works by Sydney-based artists Jenny Pollak and
Stephanie Valentine, who both use microscopy in
their work, will be shown concurrently throughout
the exhibition, while a display of historical micro-
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
scopes – “A Small History of Microscopy” – will
More information:
Uli Eichhorn
Communications & Design Officer
Tel. +61 2 9351 4493
u.eichhorn@usyd.edu.au
Date, Venue & Time
Event
Monday, 18 August,
Macleay Museum, 2–3 pm
Curator’s Tour with Dr Peter Hines.
Join Peter, Senior Microscopist and co-curator of Small Matters, as he takes you into his world of
enormous, powerful machines and microscopic matter. In conjunction with National Science Week.
Thursday, 20 August,
EMU, 12–2 pm
National Science Week Special: Behind the Scene EMU Tours. Please register at exhibition after 1
August.
Wednesday, 03 September,
Macleay Museum, 6 pm
Small Matters Lecture: Dr Judith Field; ‘Plant Use in Prehistory and How it Changed the World’.
The development of particular plant processing techniques has been argued as one of the key
prerequisites for the colonialisation of new environments by modern humans. Using examples from
China, Australia and Papua New Guinea, Judith will talk about how the microscopic analysis of
ancient starches has contributed to our understanding of the past and the use of plants by humans.
Wednesday, 10 September,
Macleay Museum, 6 pm
Small Matters History Week Special: A/Prof. Guy Cox; ‘The Hidden World of Nature – 400 years of
Discovery with Microscopes’.
The invention of the microscope in the 17th century revealed an unknown world of microstructure
and micro-organisms. Guy will talk about how the development of microscopes went hand-in-hand
with the discovery and understanding of living organisms.
Sunday, 05 October,
Macleay Museum, 12–4 pm
Kids Museums: Small Matters Family Day.
A chance for kids to observe the world up close. Fun activities will be held throughout the afternoon,
along with short talks on microscopes.
Wednesday, 22 October,
Macleay Museum, 6 pm
Small Matters Lecture: Dr Anya Salih, The University of Western Sydney & honorary staff member of
the EMU; ‘Life on the Reef’.
Microscopic analysis of coral and sea fans is a vital part of understanding the health of the Great
Barrier Reef. Anya will speak about what her research reveals about this natural wonder.
Sunday, 2 November,
Macleay Museum, 2 pm
Small Matters Lecture: Dr Allan Jones, ‘Seeing the World in 4 Dimensions’.
Allan will take you on a truly magical journey into the inside of things: travel through a lung, take
a worm’s view of rocks, and find out what’s inside a bee’s abdomen in this fun and beautiful
presentation.
Tuesday, 2 December,
Old Geology Lecture Theatre
& Macleay Museum, 6–8 pm
Excellence in Microscopy Special Lecture: Prof. Hans Tanke, Project Leader, Microscopic Imaging
and Technology, Leiden University Medical Center, Netherlands. ‘Microscopy to See DNA Molecules
at Work’.
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 2
another day or two of moving equipment, calibrating and servicing and then we will be back
to full strength with all of our new light microscopes housed in their new labs, and awaiting
the arrival of our three new TEMs. The Biofilter
was successfully moved to its new room and is
fully functional. Soon most microscopes will be
in rooms that look like this one (see photo).
The EMU’s new biological specimen preparation laboratory
undergoes a facelift.
The next interruption you will notice will be the
upgrading of the corridor, offices and kitchen
on the second floor. The major disturbance for
Update from the Building Site
The renovations are well under way and on
schedule! All the major demolition is done and
the rebuild is going full steam ahead (see above).
It started with a major move in early June when a
third of the unit was moved to various corners of
the Madsen basement with lots of willing hands
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
and some very big professional movers. While
users have been clocking up more miles walking
between specimen preparation laboratories and
users will be the blocking of the Fisher Road entrance into the building and main corridor while
this work is in progress. You will be notified
about this by email and with signage. We have
yet to allocate a temporary kitchen so that users
may take a drink and food break when they are
putting in long hours in the basement.
This is a very exciting time for us. We appreciate
your patience in the rebuilding phase and look
forward to you enjoying our new workspace and
new equipment.
finding the back corridors to various microscopes, most of the research work has been
kept going with only minor down times. However,
last Thursday the whole SEM area was closed
down for two weeks. This Friday (1 August)
sees us shutting down the main basement labs
(the temporary basement labs on the other side
of Madsen will continue to function) as a new
distribution board is installed for the upgrading
of the air-conditioning/ductwork to the new PC2
facilities and the SEM machines. However, all
The Philips CM120 Biofilter TEM, now in room B27.
but the SEM area will be back running again on
Monday, 4 August.
More information:
Ellie Kable
The labs are currently having floors laid and
Laboratory Manager
walls painted. The handover of the laboratories
Tel. +61 2 9351 7566
is scheduled for 15 August. Then we will have
e.kable@usyd.edu.au
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 3
Zeiss Ultra Plus Lands at the EMU
Somewhere amidst the noise and confusion of
demolition works that was the EMU in June,
a truck arrived bearing two large crates from
Oberkochen, Germany. Within was the keenly
anticipated new field-emission SEM. The system
is installed in the room formerly occupied by the
JEOL 6000F, but to say it is its replacement is
only part of the story. Yes, the resolution figures
for the two instruments are comparable, but that
is about where the similarities end. Users are no
Just arrived: the Unit’s new Zeiss Ultra Plus scanning electron
microscope which is housed in room B9A.
longer limited to a tiny specimen, inserted into a
TEM-style holder. The Ultra Plus has a cavernous
chamber and an 8-stub carousel. Users no longer
The key to the performance is in the Zeiss Gemini
need to flash the emitter every 15-minutes-or-
column design. In the final lens assembly is an
so as the beam current faded away. But it is in
electrostatic “beam booster”, though perhaps
operating at low accelerating voltages (down to
beam brake would be a better term. The booster
100eV!) that the instrument really shines.
comes into effect whenever a voltage of less than
20kV is selected. So, when operating at 1kV, the
beam is formed and focussed at an accelerating
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
voltage of 9kV, minimising aberrations.
The beam booster plays another vital role,
projecting and focussing the signal to two inlens detectors, giving a very strong signal. With
four electron detectors on board, users will be
generating (and hopefully interpreting) signals
not previously obtainable from their specimens.
With the charge compensator switched on, the fine details
of the fibre glue surface become clearly visible. The image is
taken with the chamber-mounted Everhart Thornley detector
at 5kV and 1nA probe current.
So far, unit staff have been driving the system in
first and second gear. A visit by Zeiss application specialist Heiner Jaksch in the first week of
October will be a great opportunity for unit staff
and users to learn the tricks that unlock the
microscope’s autobahn performance.
Find out what’s going on
Also coming is the installation of X-ray analysis
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD)
systems. EDS is a very familiar technique to
electron microscopists, but nevertheless one
undergoing some exciting changes. The silicon
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 4
drift detector (Bruker Xflash 4010) design allows
to 10mm square. The new detector promises to
a much higher X-ray count rate without sacrific-
generate a lot of results for materials scientists
ing energy resolution. Elemental maps are much
and geologists alike, and we anticipate that many
quicker to generate, and collection of full spec-
of the instrument’s overnight and weekend hours
tra at each map point (hyperspectral mapping)
will be spent acquiring EBSD patterns.
allows much better analysis and quantification.
EBSD is a diffraction technique, and can thus re-
More information:
veal the crystal phase, orientation and degree of
Dr Peter Hines
strain at each point in the raster pattern at a scale
Senior Microscopist, SEM Specialist
down to ~10nm. Compare that to the unit’s pow-
Tel. +61 2 9351 7561
der diffractometers, which analyse an area closer
p.hines@usyd.edu.au
start to explore the wonders of nature with the
amazing depth of field provided by SEM. These
new imaging technologies even allow investigation of non-conductive samples at magnifications of up to 7,500 times.
In June, the AKCMM had the Hitachi Tabletop
Microscope on demonstration for a few weeks
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
and staff enthusiastically started to explore its
The typical configuration of the Hitachi TM-1000 Tabletop
Microscope (image courtesy of Hitachi High-Technologies
Corporation).
pros and cons. We recall lots of “wow” and
“aahh” noises when Bert Heys from Meeco
Holdings Pty Ltd demonstrated to us the “baby
SEM”, as we dubbed this ‘scope. The instrument
A Scanning Electron Microscope in
Backpack Format
All of us well remember the days when scanning
electron microscopy was a technique requiring
specialised instruments that had to be operated
by highly skilled staff. While this remains the
case for high-resolution and analytical instruments, such as those provided by AKCMM
at the University of Sydney, a new generation
of “portable” scanning electron microscopes
(SEM) put topographical images of samples, at
magnifications up to 20,000 times, within the
reach of nearly everybody. Now school kids can
SEM of a hepatic endothelial cell recorded at an end
magnification of 4,000◊ (photo: W. Geerts & F. Braet).
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 5
also came with a miniaturised energy-dispersive
Welcome Dr Rebecca Powles
X-ray spectrometer, allowing collection of
elemental data within minutes, with no need for
Rebecca joined the EMU in
liquid nitrogen. The strength of the TM-1000 is
June to take up a research
its large sample chamber and, because of the
associate position. Originally
unique variable-pressure vacuum system, its
from Melbourne, Rebecca
ability to exchange samples within 3 minutes.
completed the first three
years of her undergraduate
The EMU is currently exploring ways to find the
degree at the University of Melbourne. She then
needed funds to bring this unique microscope
completed her honours degree at the Australian
to the University of Sydney. Such an instrument
National University and spent a year working for
will not only be valuable for undergraduate and
CSIRO prior to commencing her PhD at the
postgraduate teaching, but also benefit our out-
University of Sydney.
reach activities like Microscopes on the Move
and Science in the City.
More information:
A/Prof. Filip Braet
Deputy Director
Tel. +61 2 9351 7619
f.braet@usyd.edu.au
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
Tony Romeo
Microscopist, SEM Specialist
Tel. +61 2 9351 7565
t.romeo@usyd.edu.au
Her PhD project involved optical characterisation and modelling of coatings used on window
glass for energy-efficient buildings. Following
the completion of her PhD she became a visiting postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in the US where she
continued to work on energy-efficient building
windows.
Rebecca returned to Australia in 2003 as a
graduate research associate in the School of
Physics at the University of Sydney. She has
worked on developing a plasma-modification
technique for polymers used in a ventricular
assist device (an implantable blood pump or
Commemorative Symposium
Celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the
Electron Microscope Unit
artificial heart) and has also used atomistic
simulations to investigate the structure of
disordered carbon materials.
3–5 December 2008, The University of Sydney
In her role at the EMU, Rebecca will work
In honour of this occasion, we invite you to join
us for a 3-day commemorative symposium to
meet with world-leading scientists
with Prof. Simon Ringer, Dr Zongwen Liu and
For details, please visit our website or contact
Dr Julie Cairney, ph. 02 9351 4523,
email j.cairney@usyd.edu.au.
project, she is simulating a cluster beam
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
Dr Gang Sha on applying atomistic simulation
techniques in two separate projects. In one
deposition process for forming carbon films, and
in the other she’s modelling the interaction of
dislocations with defects in alloys.
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 6
Research Highlight of an EMU User
Originally from Fiji, where kava drinking is common, Professor Iqbal Ramzan, Dean of Pharmacy
at the University of Sydney, had previously
published articles on kava, a herbal product, and
wanted to further investigate the effects kava
had on the liver. His latest findings are published
in World Journal of Gastroenterology (Fu S et al.,
World J Gastroentero 2008:14;541-546) in which
Professor Ramzan and a team from the University
The hepatic microcirculation as seen through the eyes of a
scanning electron microscope.
EMU
Newsletter June/July 2008
investigated the cellular effects of kava on rat liver.
Kava has been used for recreational and social
The study found that, following kavain treatment,
purposes in the South Pacific since ancient times,
the liver tissue displayed an overall change in
much like alcohol, tea or coffee is in other socie-
structure, including the narrowing of blood ves-
ties today. In the 1980s, other medicinal uses for
sels, the constriction of blood vessel passages
kava began to emerge and it was marketed in
and the retraction of the cellular lining. Interest-
herbal form as a natural way to treat conditions
ingly, kavain also adversely affected certain
such as anxiety, insomnia, tension and restless-
cells that function in the destruction of foreign
ness, particularly in Europe and North America.
antigens (such as bacteria and viruses) and
More recently, evidence began to emerge about
make up part of the body’s immune system. In
the adverse effects of kava on the liver.
other words, the kavain treatment disturbed the
basic structure of the liver, seriously impacting
Led by Professor Iqbal Ramzan, a multidisciplinary team examined the effects of kavain, one of
the major kavalactones (the active ingredients
the normal functioning of this important organ.
More information:
in kava), on the ultrastructure (or biological
Prof. Iqbal Ramzan
structure) of the liver. This required the use of
Faculty of Pharmacy
electron microscopes provided by the AKCMM.
Tel. +61 2 9351 2077
dean@pharm.usyd.edu.au
Editors
A/Prof. Filip Braet
Tel. +61 2 9351 7619 | f.braet@usyd.edu.au
Ms Jody Cutler
Tel. +61 2 9036 5180 | j.cutler@usyd.edu.au
Ms Uli Eichhorn
Tel. +61 2 9351 4493 | u.eichhorn@usyd.edu.au
Ms Ellie Kable
Tel. +61 2 9351 7566 | e.kable@usyd.edu.au
Dr Kyle Ratinac
Tel. +61 2 9351 4513 | k.ratinac@usyd.edu.au
Electron Microscope Unit
Incorporating
Australian Microscopy & Microanalysis Research Facility
Australian Key Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis
ARC Centre of Excellence for Design in Light Metals
The University of Sydney
NSW 2006, Australia
Tel. + 61 2 9351 2351
www.emu.usyd.edu.au
EMU Newsletter June/July 2008 | 7