April Conferences Focus on Scanning Advances

Since the advent of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) in the 1930s, that instrument and its many and diverse descendents—including atomic force, scanning tunneling, confocal and helium ion microscopes—have unlocked microscopic worlds down to the atomic scale. "Scanning 2008," a two-day conference on April 15-17, 2008, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md., will bring together microscopists, specializing in everything from scanned optics to scanned particle beams, to discuss current research and new advances in the field.

Conference topics will include forensic applications of SEM, scanning ion microscopy, quality assurance in SEM and micro characterization, silicon drift detectors, biological environmental/variable pressure SEM, modeling for critical SEM and microanalysis applications, scanning probe microscopy and scanning optical microscopy.

The meeting will feature tours of select NIST facilities, including a helium ion microscope, a high speed X-ray mapping facility using a silicon drift detector, a micro X-ray fluorescence X-ray spectrum imaging facility and others.

Registration for the conference closes April 8. To register or for more information, see the Scanning 2008 registration page. You also may view a preliminary program here.