Linköpings Universitet (LiU)

Linköpings Universitet (LiU) is a dynamic young university founded in 1975 and is one of the top young universities ranked as the “top 50 under 50”, a worldwide ranking of universities less than 50 years old. The Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM) is one of the original LiU departments, which was initially founded in 1969 as the Department of Physics and Measurement Technology. IFM started with 30 employees including 6 professors, and today it has more than 400 staff, including 50 professors and 150 doctoral students. Each year, about 20 doctoral students receive their doctorates at IFM. In addition to this, the department receives guest researchers from all over the globe. The yearly budget exceeds 500 million SEK, the majority of which related to research projects. IFM also offers over 200 undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate courses each year.

Prof Per O.Å. Persson is the leading electron microscopist at LiU, administering a >100 MSEK investment in research infrastructure that serves >100 direct users. In the past decade, Prof Persson worked hard to promote LiU to one of the more advanced microscopy environments in Europe. As a consequence, he is nationally recognized as Special Researcher (VR) and Infrastructure Research Fellow (SSF), having organized the procurement of one of the most advanced electron microscopes in northern Europe apart from having outlined the specifications for Ångströmhuset, a purpose-built environment that enables the continuous and noise-free operation of a FEI Titan³ 60-300 scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) with image and probe C_s correctors and a monochromated high-brightness XFEG gun. Available detectors in this electron microscope include the large solid angle Super-X EDX and the Gatan Quantum ERS energy loss filter. Since imaging and spectroscopy at atomic resolution enables researchers to address fundamental challenges associated with the organization of materials, atom by atom, this instrument has a leading role in the Swedish National Infrastructure in Electron Microscopy, ARC. The Ångströmhuset is also the primary environment of the Electron Microscopy of Materials Group at LiU, which represents a very strong and able user base for this microscope. The core group consist of materials scientists, with a dedication to, and specialization in electron microscopy.