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.

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.

The same microscope is used for ongoing instrumentation development, including ultra-high vacuum sample transfer, laser illumination, in situ magnetising and low temperature experiments.

ERC-1 (solid state physics and chemistry) focuses on electroceramics and nanoelectronic oxides, materials for Green IT, electromagnetic field mapping, electron optics and method development, metallic alloys and crystal growth, catalysis, nanofabrication and quantum sensing, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy and momentum-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy.

Laboratory annexe to the ER-C inaugurated on 29 September 2011 housing the PICO together with four other electron microscopes.
FEI Titan 50-300 PICO electron microscope
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.