Twenty years after: How “Aberration correction in the STEM” truly placed a “A synchrotron in a Microscope”

Nearly two decades have passed since the Electron Microscopy and Analysis Group (EMAG) Conference was held in Cambridge in 1997, during which two seminal lectures were delivered that would influence the future of the U.K. electron microscopy community. With “Aberration correction in the STEM”, O.L. Krivanek and co-workers ushered in the era of probe-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy, a powerful technology that L.M. Brown urged the community at large to embrace, arguing that it would be akin to placing “A Synchrotron in a Microscope”. This contribution will provide a personal account of how three generations of instruments installed at the SuperSTEM Laboratory, the national facility established after L.M. Brown's vision, have made these powerful statements come true.