Tag Archives: HEMiC

Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology gets first Hitachi H-95000 microscope outside of Japan

Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) has just opened a facility (which was mentioned as a future project in my July 20, 2009 posting) with three new Hitachi microscopes in a $15M funding partnership. From the July 13, 2011 article by Dave Cooper for the Edmonton Journal,

The Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Centre [HEMiC; Note: This was formerly called the Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Development Centre] at NINT opened Tuesday, a $15-million partnership between the federal and provincial governments and Hitachi, that marks the entry of Edmonton as the North American microscope leader.

One of the three new machines -the H-9500 environmental transmission electron microscope -is so new it is only the second in the world after one at a Toyota research centre in Japan.

“This technology suite (of three new microscopes) has enabled Alberta and Canada to establish a centre that will be the leading edge of nanotechnology research and development for many years to come,” Hidehito Obayashi, chairman of Hitachi High Technologies, said Tuesday.

I found some more information about the H-9500 microscope in this July 13, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

The Hitachi H-9500 Environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM) can study in-situ chemical reactions of samples in liquids and gases. It will offer a very low background pressure (in the 10-8 torr region) ensuring low sample contamination rate and low effect of background gases on the in-situ experiment. Its capabilities include the possibility to heat the sample to temperatures exceeding 1500° C while exposed to various gases or study liquid samples at temperatures exceeding 300° C. The analytical capabilities of the instrument include electron energy loss spectroscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry for chemical analysis. This instrument offers standard TEM imaging and diffraction capabilities allowing the investigation of sample structure and morphology.

As for the HEMiC facility (more from the news item on Nanowerk),

HEMiC will have two streams of activity: the provision of a wide range of electron microscopy services to industrial and academic clients; and a research collaboration between NINT and Hitachi researchers that will develop new electron microscope tools and techniques. The Centre will also be a Hitachi reference site, allowing Hitachi to showcase its latest microscopes, giving potential clients from North America an opportunity to gain hands-on experience with new instruments and techniques before buying.

I have mused on this before but I really do wonder what happens when there’s a scheduling conflict between research interests and commercial interests. In other words, what happens when you need to use the microscope for research purposes at the same time the sales people want to show it to potential customers? What is the protocol and who decides?

Alberta welcomes a new nanotechnology product and research centre plus some news on a kissing phone

The new facility will be called the Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Development Centre (HEMiC) at Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. From the media release (on Azonano),

“Alberta’s strength in nanotechnologies, and the province’s coordinated strategy for nanotechnology made our decision to seek a partnership here easy,” said John Cole, President of Hitachi High-Technologies Canada, Inc. “This initiative engages Hitachi with Alberta’s nanotechnology community at the leading edge of research while contributing to commercial opportunities.”

The Centre will house three new electron microscopes valued at $7 million, including the first-ever Hitachi environmental transmission electron microscope Model H-9500 in operation outside of Japan.

There are many quotes in the media release, surprisingly, none from Dr. Nils Petersen, NINT’s  Director General.

Fast Company is featuring an article by Kit Eaton about phones that won’t require buttons for control (more touch screen-type technology but introducing a new level of innovation). As it turns out, these phones will be coming from Nokia. Kissing the phone as a gesture that you want to contact a loved is just one of the ideas being explored. More here including a Nokia video about the project. The product designers are looking at how people gesture and, depending on your culture, the meaning behind gestures can vary greatly as the Nokia designer notes in the video. Anyway, this type of project relates to my interest in multimodal discourse and my suspicion that we won’t be writing (or for the matter reading) as much as we do now.

Rob Annan over at Don’t leave Canada behind has picked up on my series of last week’s about innovation in Canada, in his posting Canada not simply hewers and drawers.