The modern electron microscope: A cornucopia of chemico-physical insights

A myriad array of structural and dynamic properties and processes pertaining to biological, physical and engineering materials is now retrievable in unprecedented detail using electron microscopy, thanks to several key technical advances made in recent years. This is a summarising account of those advances and the multiplicity of new insights gained through their application. We also ponder what further developments may soon become feasible.

The background shows an aberration-corrected STEM HAADF image of GaN, the centre a schematic of the STEM technique, top left a tomographic reconstruction of Pd/Ru nanoparticles on mesoporous silica, top right a PINEM image of an Escherichia coli cell.Highlights► We highlight the myriad array of structural and dynamic properties of materials retrievable using electron microscopy ► The recent technical advances made in electron microscopy are summarised ► The multiplicity of new chemico-physical insights gained through the application of modern electron microscopy is explored ► We ponder what further developments may soon become feasible.