SMART-electron: the EU-funded H2020 project that promises to revolutionize electron microscopy and the investigation of materials

Thursday 04 February 2021
At work an international consortium coordinated by the University of Milano-Bicocca
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smart electron

The development of a new technology that would radically change how matter is investigated in electron microscopy is the objective of the SMART-electron project (H2020-FETOPEN-2018-2020, Grant Agreement n.964591), coordinated by Dr. Giovanni Maria Vanacore, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Science of the University of Milano-Bicocca, studying ultrafast phenomena in solids and nanostructures. SMART-electron is one of the 58 “game-changing” projects funded by the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder pilot program, which “supports the early-stages of the science and technology research and innovation around new ideas towards radically new future technologies” (link here).

The “revolutionary” vision behind the project is to establish a new technological paradigm that would exploit light pulses to manipulate at will electron waves in an efficient, rapid and arbitrary manner. This would promote the implementation of completely innovative methods for materials investigation, capable of improving the performance of an electron microscope in terms of image resolution, acquisition speed, sensitivity to specific sample properties, and reduction of sample damage effects.

a cura di Redazione Centrale, ultimo aggiornamento il 04/02/2021