UVic to get world’s most precise microscope

$20-million scanning tool to arrive in 2011

Vancouer Sun – July 17, 2009

The University of Victoria will soon be home to the world’s most precise microscope, a tool capable of viewing the subatomic universe.

The microscope, expected to be delivered to the university in 2011, will allow scientists to see quasiparticles and materials far beyond the scope of the human eye.

The $20-million scanning transmission electron holography microscope (STEHM) is the first of its kind in the world, built especially for the university by Hitachi High-Technologies in Japan.

The microscope is also unique because of its ability to observe the inside of particles as well as the outside.

“Other scanning electron microscopes at the moment only look at surfaces of things,” said Dr. Elaine Humphrey, the university’s STEHM lab manager. “The STEHM will also look through things. It’s like 100 microscopes in one.”

Looking at the insides of brain cells, for example, will help scientists in their research on multiple sclerosis.