4D ELECTRON MICROSCOPY: IMAGING IN SPACE AND TIME

by Ahmed H. Zewail, John M. Thomas

The modern electron microscope, as a result of recent revolutionary developments and many evolutionary ones, now yields a wealth of quantitative knowledge pertaining to structure, dynamics, and function barely matched by any other single scientific instrument. It is also poised to contribute much new spatially-resolved and time-resolved insights of central importance in the exploration of most aspects of condensed matter, ranging from the physical to the biological sciences.Whereas in all conventional EM methods, imaging, diffraction, and chemical analyses have been conducted in a static -- time-integrated -- manner, now it has become possible to unite the time domain with the spatial one, thereby creating four-dimensional (4D) electron microscopy. This advance is based on the fundamental concept of timed, coherent single-electron packets, or electron pulses, which are liberated with femtosecond durations. Structural phase transitions, mechanical deformations, and the embryonic stages of melting and crystallization are examples of phenomena that can now be imaged in unprecedented structural detail with high spatial resolution, and ten orders of magnitude as fast as hitherto.No monograph in existence attempts to cover the revolutionary dimensions that EM in its various modes of operation nowadays makes possible. The authors of this book chart these developments, and also compare the merits of coherent electron waves with those of synchrotron radiation. They judge it prudent to recall some important basic procedural and theoretical aspects of imaging and diffraction so that the reader may better comprehend the significance of the new vistas and applications now afoot.This book is not a vade mecum -- numerous other texts are available for the practitioner for that purpose. It is instead an in-depth exposé of the paradigm concepts and the developed techniques that can now be executed to gain new knowledge in the entire domain of biological and physical science, and in the four dimensions of space and time.

360 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2009

About the author

(Arabic: أحمد زويل)

Ahmed Zewail is the Linus Pauling Chair professor of chemistry and physics, and director of the Center for Physical Biology at Caltech. He is the sole recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize for the development of the field of Femtochemistry. In the post-Nobel era, he developed 4D Electron Microscopy for the direct visualization of matter in space and time. Dr. Zewail’s other honors include fifty Honorary Degrees, Orders of Merits, Postage Stamps and more than hundred international awards. He has published some 600 articles and 14 books and is known for his effective public lectures and writings, not only on science but also in global affairs. For his leadership role in these world affairs, he received, among others, the “Top American Leaders Award” from The Washington Post and Harvard University. In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed him to the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and in the same year he was named the first U.S. Science Envoy to the Middle East. Subsequently, the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon invited Dr. Zewail to join the UN Scientific Advisory Board. In Egypt, he serves in the Council of Advisors to the President. Following the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the government established “Zewail City of Science and Technology” as the national project for scientific renaissance, and Dr. Zewail became its first Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

http://www.zewail.caltech.edu/biograp...

Reviews

[Almodather Awad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an essential reading for any researcher who wants to deal with electron microscopy in general, and 4D electron microscopy in particular. The first part of the book covers essential background information on microscopy and its technological evolution.