The 14th and last International Congress of Electron Microscopy (ICEM) of the century was held in Cancun, Mexico on August 31-September 4, 1998 under the chairmanship of Dr. Miguel José Yacaman. Held every 4 years in a different international location, these ICEMs are renowned for the science presented, the state-of-the-art instrumentation exhibited, and the mix of international scientists in attendance. They are also made memorable by the unique scientific and cultural contributions from the host country. This Congress was no exception and the 14th ICEM in Cancun, Mexico, characterized by all of these features, was further augmented by the intrinsic beauty and archaeological interest of the Yucatan Peninsula region.

We discuss the application of ion microscopy and in situ electron microscopy to the study of electronic and optical materials and devices. We demonstrate how the combination of in situ transmission electron microscopy and focused ion beam microscopy provides new avenues for the study for such structures, enabling extension of these techniques to the study of dopant distributions, nanoscale stresses, three-dimensional structural and chemical reconstruction, and real-time evolution of defect microstructure. We also discuss in situ applications of thermal, mechanical, electrical, and optical stresses during transmission electron microscopy imaging.

Digital imaging has made electron microscopy more quantitative, more direct, and more automated. It has vastly changed the way in which microscopy is done today. The conventional photographic emulsion technique for image recording is being replaced by CCD-based digital imaging techniques in virtually all aspects of electron microscopy applications, resulting in increased work efficiency and data accuracy. Many of the microscope's evaluation procedures are traditionally time-consuming and complicated, such as measurements of TEM resolution and spherical aberration coefficient of the objective lens, etc. However, they can be greatly simplified with the use of slow-scan CCD cameras bee and appropriate software.

With many superior properties over other image recording media, slow-scan CCD cameras offer possibilities for many new TEM applications, such as TEM autotuning and automated microscopy. On-line image display and analysis have proved to be the key elements in CCD-based digital imaging.

Morphological evolution associated with silicidation of Co thin films deposited on (100) and (111) Si substrates has been followed using transmission electron microscopy with in situ thermal annealing from ambient temperature up to 850°C. Noticeable structural changes associated with the formation of CoSi2 occur at temperatures as low as 400°C and the reaction is essentially complete at about 500°C. Prolonged heating above 500°C leads to CoSi2 grain growth and coalescence and, finally, to pinholes formation. Silicidation of Co films on (100) and (111) Si substrates follows the same pattern. The morphology of films annealed in situ is similar to those annealed ex situ except that the Si/CoSi2 interface appears to be much rougher. This behavior is associated with the specific geometry of cross-sectional TEM specimens, where surface diffusion dominates bulk diffusion. Very thin Co films, which have less contribution from surface diffusion than thicker films, are ideal for studying dynamic phenomena at Co/Si reactive interfaces.

This list contains brief descriptions of each of the positions known to be open in Microscopy Society of America (MSA) Placement Office files as of January 1, 1998. Potential employers are urged to use the Placement Office as widely as possible to advertise their needs to MSA members. Likewise, MSA members who are seeking employment in microscopy are urged to register with the Office to receive data on open positions periodically.

Control of electron microscopes by a remote networked computer system has been implemented successfully in a variety of ways including via the World Wide Web (WWW). This approach works well with users who are familiar with the operation of the instrument and are experienced microscopists. However, many of our collaborations involve other scientists or engineers looking to us for analytical expertise. In order to accommodate collaborators with a broad range of skills and to allow them to interact remotely, in near-real time with a scientist operating an instrument, we have implemented a Virtual Collaborative Environment (VCE) based on a WWW server and the use of the server-push protocol.

The system developed at NIST is a frames-based WWW page that is presented to the user with an index of instruments on the left side (FIG.l), live video pages to the right side, and a download area (via ftp) toward the bottom for data and high resolution images.

Following is a list of microscopy-related meetings and courses. The editors would greatly appreciate input to this list via the electronic submission form found in the MSA World Wide Web page at http://www.msa.microscopy.com/. We will gladly add hypertext links to the notice on the Web and insert a listing of the meeting in the next issue of the Journal. Send comments and questions to Barbara Reine, [email protected] or Nestor Zaluzec, [email protected].

The Foucault and Fresnel modes of Lorentz microscopy, together with a quantitative magnetization mapping technique, summed image differential phase-contrast imaging, were used to study the magnetization reversal mechanism of the sense layer in spin-valve structures exhibiting the giant magnetoresistance effect. In addition to studies of sheet film, lithographically defined spin-valve elements were investigated. A current can be passed through the element during magnetizing so that the effect of the applied current on the giant magnetoresistance and magnetization reversal mechanism can be studied. Results are presented for a number of different spin-valve structures.

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Collaboration between local microscopists and image processing specialists, and their remote biological colleagues, has been hampered by the difficulty of i) transferring the three-dimensional reconstructions of macromolecules resulting from the cryomicroscopy and image processing, ii) viewing the results in a meaningful way, and iii) communicating the results and the interpretations derived therefrom to each other.

The acrosomal process is an intracellular quasi-crystalline organelle in the head of the sperm of the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus. It consists of 100 - 130 actin-scruin filaments packed together in a pseudo-hexagonal lattice and is up to 60 μm long with a diameter of 0.1 μm. Scruin-scruin interactions are responsible for cross-linking the actin filaments together in the bundle. Our goal was to reveal interfilament interactions in the bundle. We have taken tilt series images in the electron microscope to reconstruct its three-dimensional structure at 45 Å resolution.

Reconstruction of the Cu(001) surface due to oxygen gas impingement on a clean copper surface was directly observed by in situ UHV-TEM. Strain contrast between differently oriented surface reconstruction domains, assumed to be √2 × 2√2 R45, were clearly visible by this method. The reconstruction precedes the nucleation of Cu2O islands. When Cu2O islands were partially reduced and then re-oxidized, a dwell time before formation of Cu2O was noted, demonstrating that a reconstructed Cu-O surface monolayer is necessary before oxide formation.

The advent of digital imaging in microscopy has inspired many changes to the conventional generation and presentation of photographic image data. The demise of the photographic darkroom is a direct result of the prolific electronic image format. Digital images offer extensive flexibility with respect to image manipulation and analysis, duplication, technical presentations, and data transfer to remote locations. With this advance to digital technology come new obstacles for the "traditional" microscopy laboratory to hurdle once this technology is implemented. A few of these obstacles include data storage and retrieval systems, networking of analytical instruments, and adequate software for image manipulation.

The intent of this presentation is to introduce the analytical community to a successful implementation of a laboratory-wide image management system, specifically, the strategies behind the concept and completion of the system and successes gained therefrom.

Following is a list of microscopy-related meetings and courses. The editors would greatly appreciate input to this list via the electronic submission form found in the MSA World-Wide Web page at http://www.msa.microscopy.com/. We will gladly add hypertext links to the notice on the Web and insert a listing of the meeting in the next issue of the Journal.

Microscopic Explorations, Microscopy Society of America's microscopy-based middle school manual, has just been published by the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), one of the leading institutions in U.S. precollege science education. This is an appropriate time to give some thanks and present some history. Let's begin with the description of the manual that appears in the MICRO bibliography (MSA Bulletin [Special Issue] 23:1–16 [1997], and www.MSA.microsco-py.com/Project MICRO/Books.html).

We report here the successful development of a new instrument, the Centrifuge Polarizing Microscope (CPM). The CPM was developed to explore, by high-extinction polarized light microscopy, the dynamic alignment, linkage, and interaction of macromolecules, fine structure, and organelles in living cells and developing embryos being centrifugally stratified. It should also find applications in material sciences, e.g., for examining centrifugal stratification, compaction, and alignment of liquid crystals and emulsions; the CPM uniquely allows continuous observation and measurement of the weak birefringence exhibited by molecules and fine structures that are oriented, or become oriented, under centrifugal acceleration.

Centrifuge microscopes of various designs have been built since the 1930s but were not equipped for polarization optics. In the 8-cm-radius rotor of our prototype CPM, spinning between the objective and condenser lenses with numerical apertures of up to 0.55, the specimen chamber is illuminated stroboscopically by a 5- to 7-ns intense flash of 532-nm-wavelength light from a Nd- YAG laser, synchronized to fire exactly as the specimen intersects the axis of the objective lens (Fig. 1).