LAUSR

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) based heating stages have revolutionized in-situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) experiments and are widely used to observe thermally activated processes at high spatial resolution [1]. TEM heating experiments are routinely performed to observe phenomena such as sublimation and melting of metal nanoparticles, phase transformations in complex alloys, and dewetting of thin films, to name a few. These MEMS-based micro-heaters are ideal to observe solid-state transformations in materials at the atomic scale, because of their reduced sample drift, small thermal mass, fast heater response times, and high temperature homogeneity across the heater surface [2,3].