A deep understanding of matter structure and properties is needed to develop innovative methods and new technology options. Nowadays a constantly increasing number of scientific fields but also the industrial sector use transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques that are essential for the development of a constantly increasing number of scientific fields (nanomaterials, nanotechnologies, energy generation, structural biology, medicine, environmental science, information technologies, earth sciences, quantum mechanics, etc.) and for the industrial sector (semiconductors, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, energy, transport, etc.).
In the most industrialized countries, and also in some of the emerging ones, TEM-based labs are a well-established reality from long time, but not yet in Italy, despite our long scientific tradition in the field of TEM. Looking to the international context, Italian TEMs are scattered across the national territory and underdeveloped due to the presence of dated instruments. At Sapienza the last TEM had bought about 20 years ago, so it is fundamental to provide the most important Italian university with a last generation TEM that fulfils the requirements of users belonging to biomedical and technological departments.
To bring back to the top Sapienza University, we propose the realization of a TEM-based platform for advanced Imaging and Diffraction Analyses (TEMIDA), equipped with sets of accessories at the state-of-the-art, enabling different characterization methodologies, suitable for all the scientific fields, from material science to life science. The TEMIDA platform will be integrated in the ATOM center, recently funded by Region Lazio with 2.495.466 euro (www.atomcenter.org) and will be open to all academic and industrial users, and further will increase Sapienza's capability to accomplish high quality, high impact and innovative research while supporting and developing research links with industry, in Italy and internationally.
Imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter require often the help of TEM-based methodologies being part of the emerging field of the so-called `nanocharacterization'.
Progresses will be the result of the availability of a TEM platform based on innovative concepts and integrating advanced nanocharacterization techniques, i.e., precession electron diffraction (PED) and Cryo-TEM, which will allow Sapienza to be at the forefront of regional and national research, as well as in the crucial activities for technological transfer.
PED is an innovative and state-of-the-art reliable technique for structural analysis, making TEM the only instrument able to study the crystallographic properties both in real space (down to atomic scale), and reciprocal space, with information localization capability. TEMIDA will make accessible localized strain, local crystallographic orientation, quantification of spatial distributions in fine-grained polyphase materials, boosting the research activities of Sapienza in the different fields of PHYSICAL SCIENCES.
Conversely, allowing the examination of frozen-hydrated specimens in vitreous ice, cryo-TEM enables the upkeep of the specimen ultrastructure, buffer and ligand distribution from its native state. Also, combining a variety of techniques such as electron crystallography, single particle analysis, cryo-electron tomography, MicroED, cryo-TEM will open new horizons for Sapienza researches in particular in the field of LIFE SCIENCES.
The requested instrumentation will open significant advancements in a broad range of research fields which are undoubtedly `feathers in Sapienza's cap'. Very few of them (being the limit of 5k chars) are briefly described in the following, aiming at showing the broadness of foreseen advancements for Sapienza, that are presently largely hampered by the absence of a modern and advanced TEM platform.
MATERIALS SCIENCE and SEMICONDUCTOR TECHNOLOGY
The evolution of nano-science and technology has empowered new approaches to designing and controlling materials properties at the atomic and molecular length scales. Intrinsic or induced structural changes in nano-materials can lead to dramatic variation in their physical properties. The characterization of strain, down to nanoscale level, is of fundamental importance for its understanding and management, and is a key point for both the design and implementation of advanced materials and for the optimization of production processes of nano-devices. The hypothesis to install a PED tool has received a great interest from some relevant industries, as LFoundry (ex-Micron Technologies), Leonardo (ex-Finmeccanica) and STMicroelectronics, with which are already in progress fruitful collaborations.
Moreover, the understanding of synthesis mechanisms for the production of coatings, nanoparticles and nanodevices and their optimization requires an adequate and comprehensive characterization at the different levels of nanostructure, phase/nanophase composition and residual stress fields. The tools available in TEMIDA, from STEM to PED and EDX, together with the other tomography capabilities of ATOM, will allow a complete and advanced characterizations in house, with evident advantages in terms of necessary time to get the experimental data, with also positive effects on the competitiveness of Sapienza.
BIOLOGY and MEDICINE
Cryo-TEM is a powerful tool to characterize unstained biological structures, both in large cells and tissues, allowing to observe extremely delicate structures in their native condition in the vitreous sections. Enabling a significant progress in the study of cytoskeletal pathologies, in the ultrastructural mitochondrial damage, cryo-TEM provides new insights into mitochondrial physiopathology and supply quantitative indexes of structural impairment. It also will allow to dissect pathways of production and release of nanosized extracellular vescicles giving new insights of their shuttle role for the delivery of bioactive compounds between cells.
Finally, it will enable the detection of circulating tumour cells (CTC), which are cells that have shed into the vasculature or lymphatics from a primary tumor, facilitating appropriate modification to a patient's therapy, potentially improving their prognosis/quality of life.
GEO SCIENCES
TEMIDA will open many different possibilities of advancement in several fields of GEO sciences, such as study of:
-Asbestos-like minerals, to comprehend mechanisms inducing toxicity and nanoscale surface modifications induced by prolonged contact with human body fluids;
-New materials synthetized at extreme P-T conditions;
-Mechanics of faults and earthquakes and role of interlayer exfoliation of phyllosilicates in sliding along faults or of thermal de-carbonation of calcite;
-Mechanisms determining the final heavy metal-bearing crystalline carbonates in CO2 carbonation process to immobilize toxic metals in environmentally friendly crystalline phases.