Ceremony for the inauguration of the SALVE microscope at the University of Ulm
Figure 1: The ceremony announcement.
December 11, 2017 - Representatives of the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts (MWK) Baden-Württemberg, the presidents of the German, the European microscopy society, and the vice-president of the international microscopy society, and the president of Ulm University today participate in the inauguration of the SALVE microscope. Physicist Nobel Laureate Professor Klaus von Klitzing and many other renowned physicists, materials scientists and microscopy will also give talks during the ceremony (Fig. 1).
Figure 2: The speakers at the ceremony.
Figure 3: SALVE director and invited speakers.
"The fact that this long-standing project ultimately became a success story is not at least due to the unflinching, tenaciousness and endurance of the scientists involved," emphasizes University President Professor Michael Weber to the approximately 150 guests. Above all, he calls the physicist Prof. Ute Kaiser. The head of the group Material Science Electron Microscopy has been the director of Ulm Universities SALVE project since its beginning in 2009. Together with the Heidelberg Company CEOS and the microscope manufacturer FEI, which is now part of Thermo Fisher, the scientists around Ute Kaiser have, after many years of intensive research, succeeded in developing the world's first low-voltage transmission electron microscope, which has spherical and chromatic aberration correction. Since September, the SALVE microscope has been available at the University of Ulm.
To the opening of Prof. Michael Weber followed talks by Ulrich Steinbach (Ministerial Director, Baden-Wuerttemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Art), Dr. Burkhard Jahnen (Program Director, German Research Foundation - DFG), Prof. Michael Lehmann (President of the German Society of Electron Microscopy, DGE), Prof. Josef Zweck (President of the European Society of Microscopy, EMS) and Prof. Barry Carter (Vice President of the International Federation of Societies of Microscopy, IFSM).
Gentle imaging with maximum resolution
The scientific starting point of the SALVE project: anyone who wanted to study radiation-sensitive materials electron microscopically had to decide between low resolution and massive material damage. "The scientists were like the donkey starving between two haystacks because he cannot decide," explains Professor Josef Zweck. In the frame of the SALVE project - the abbreviation stands for "Sub-Ångström Low Voltage Electron Microscopy" - a technical solution was found that allows highest resolution under gentle imaging conditions.
Prof. Ute Kaiser presented the outline and the history of the SALVE project. "For this purpose, a low-voltage TEM was equipped with a type of two-fold glasses, which eliminates physical aberrations, as they occur at low voltage”. Without the groundbreaking theoretical concept of Professor Harald Rose - Senior Professor at the University of Ulm - for electron-optical aberration correction and the years of development work of Professor Maximilian Haider and his company CEOS, this would not have been possible, the scientist emphasized. "The SALVE instrument is the result of years of research, and this unique research device not only gives us unprecedented insights into the world of atoms, but also enables the University of Ulm to further develop into a leading research center for microscopy worldwide," Ute Kaiser said. The project has now come to a successful conclusion with the introduction of the five-meter microscope two months ago in a case-designed new building at the campus of Ulm University.
Video 1. The construction of the SALVE microscope.
Prof. Max. Haider (CEOS, Heidelberg) reported on the technological advances in electron optics triggered by the project. The lecture of Prof. Klaus Müllen (MPIP Director, Mainz) elucidated the diversity of the chemistry of graphene, the most prominent radiation sensitive 2D material. Prof. Klaus von Klitzing (Nobel Laureate, MPI Stuttgart) presented the inherent presence of electron microscopy in the most ambitious and prominent research and technological projects of the last century awarded with the Nobel Prize.
No less demanding, but in a charming and relaxed manner, Professor Hannes Lichte opened the After Dinner Talks. The fact that science and creativity are not mutually exclusive is demonstrated by the electron optics expert from the Dresden University of Technology in his lecture. The Ulm quantum physicist Professor Wolfgang Schleich then devoted himself to a very special birth story: the emergence of the Schrödinger equation.
Scientists from all over the world are now allowed to use the new microscope. Thus, the SALVE sign on the microscope building in the Latin sense can be understood quite literally: Welcome!