Ernst Ruska-Centre

The Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C) is an institute located on the campus of Forschungszentrum Jülich belonging to the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. It comprises three divisions: “Physics of Nanoscale systems”,  “Materials Science and Technology” and “Structural Biology”.

Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons

Abbreviation	ER-C
Established	27 January 2004
Type	Institute within Forschungszentrum Jülich and User Facility jointly operated with RWTH Aachen
Location	Jülich, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Coordinates	50°54′29″N 6°24′49″E
Directors	Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, Joachim Mayer and Carsten Sachse
Founding Director	Knut Urban
Affiliations	Jülich Research Centre and RWTH Aachen University
Staff	50-100
Website	www.fz-juelich.de/er-c

The ER-C's main purposes are fundamental research in electron microscopy, focusing on method development and applications of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and scanning-transmission electron microscopy (STEM) in physics, chemistry and biology.

History

As a competence platform, the ER-C was founded on 27 January 2004 through a contract signed by the chairman of Forschungszentrum Jülich Joachim Treusch and the rector of RWTH Aachen University Burkhard Rauhut.^[1] It was inaugurated on 18 May 2006 in the presence of members of the Ernst Ruska family, as well as representatives of the international electron microscopy community.^[2] On 1 January 2017, the ER-C attained the status of an independent scientific institute in Forschungszentrum Jülich. The ER-C is presently expanding further within the framework of the Research Infrastructure Roadmap of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the designation ER-C 2.0. The ER-C thus creates incentives for companies dealing with novel materials and technologies to settle in the Rhenish mining area and contribute to the development of a competence region for innovative materials technologies and ultimately to the success of structural change.

Instrumental Resources

Laboratory annexe to the ER-C inaugurated on 29 September 2011 housing the PICO together with four other electron microscopes.

The ER-C develops new methods and technologies in the field of electron microscopy, with a special focus on ultra-high-resolution techniques to study solid state materials, soft materials and biological systems. The ER-C houses conventional and state-of-the-art electron microscopes, ranging from standard scanning electron microscopes to highly-specialised aberration corrected instruments offering sub-Å resolution imaging and spectroscopy,^[3] as well as quantitative measurements of electromagnetic field distributions using phase contrast techniques that include off-axis electron holography and 4D STEM. The ER-C currently operates seven aberration-corrected instruments.^[4]

On 29 February 2012, the ER-C inaugurated the first chromatic aberration corrected transmission electron microscope in Europe, which is designated “PICO” and is capable of resolving atomic positions in materials with a spatial resolution of 50 picometers and a precision approaching 1 picometer.^[5] It is also equipped with a monochromator, an electron biprism, an electron energy-loss spectrometer and a direct electron counting detector.

In situ and quantitative electromagnetic field measurements can be carried out using a spherical aberration corrected transmission electron microscope equipped with a large (11 mm) objective pole-piece gap, a double biprism system and a direct electron counting detector. The same microscope is used for ongoing instrumentation development, including ultra-high vacuum sample transfer, laser illumination, in situ magnetising and low temperature experiments.

Recently, cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) became an integral part of the Ernst-Ruska Centre with state-of-the-art cryo-microscopes: 300 kV Titan Krios G4 (operational in Summer 2021) and 200 kV Talos Arctica including Gatan Bioquantum K3 detectors.^[6]

Research Programmes

The FEI Titan 50-300 PICO is a double spherical aberration corrected and chromatic aberration corrected (S)TEM along with a monochromator, two electron biprisms and a direct electron detector after a post column energy filter. It allows a spatial resolution below 50 pm in both TEM and STEM modes.