Thermo Scientific Iliad integrates electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and NanoPulser electrostatic beam blanker to improve insights at the atomic level

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, introduced a groundbreaking transmission electron microscope to a packed room of attendees at the recent European Microscopy Congress 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a fully integrated multimodal analytical solution, the Thermo Scientific™ Iliad™ (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscope, (S)TEM, gives scientific pioneers deeper insights about the chemical nature of the most sophisticated modern materials, down to the atomic level.

Thermo Scientific Iliad (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscope integrates electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and NanoPulser electrostatic beam blanker to improve insights at the atomic level 

Iliad (S)TEM leverages Thermo Fisher's long history of innovation in scanning transmission electron microscopy, integrating multiple technological modalities into a seamless and user-friendly workflow.

“A revolutionary new platform like this only comes around once in a decade,” said David Wall, vice president and general manager of Materials Science at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “Beginning with its unveiling at EMC, Iliad has already received a positive and energetic reception from researchers and industry leaders across the globe. This is the culmination of years of investment and hard work, but in many ways it’s just the beginning of unlocking the full potential of integrated microscopy technology.”

Leading-edge integration of Iliad hardware and software

Iliad (S)TEM is featuring the new Thermo Fisher Scientific EELS Spectrometer and Energy Filter, as well as the NanoPulser — the new electrostatic beam blanker for the electron dose optimization. Multimodality and the integration of energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), EELS and the NanoPulser ensures the advanced and effective approach for precise chemical and structural investigations of broad classes of modern materials.

Iliad is fully controlled with the Thermo Scientific Velox software ecosystem for both spectroscopy and imaging, making the most challenging experiments now accessible to every user. Nearly every component in the Iliad platform can be accessed via Python scripting using Autoscript, opening the possibility of advanced control of the microscope, as well as the adoption of AI-based data collection and processing strategies. The solid interlink of the core modalities of modern (S)TEM enables smooth and reliable workflows for scientists.

Infused with customer insight

Professor Jo Verbeeck, co-leader of Electron Microscopy for Materials Science (EMAT) at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, collaborated on the development of Iliad with the special focus on data quantification. “It’s one thing to write papers on electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) quantification, it is far more exciting to see these ideas also implemented in a product that will really change the user experience and reproducibility of EELS,” says Professor Verbeeck, a renowned leader in EELS.

With Iliad, Thermo Fisher Scientific is opening a new chapter of advanced analytical (S)TEM. This completely integrated technology will enable scientists across broad academic and technology sectors to solve scientific problems that make the world healthier, cleaner and safer.