page_title: Ernst Ruska-Centre
section_title: Instrumental Resources
hierarchical_section_title: Ernst Ruska-Centre / Instrumental Resources
caption_attribution_description: PICO transmission electron microscope installed at the ER-C in Jülich, Germany.
context_page_description: The Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons is a German research establishment conjointly operated by the Jülich Research Centre and RWTH Aachen University on a pari passu basis. The facility, which also offers user services to external research groups, is located on the campus of Research Centre Jülich belonging to the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.
  The ER-C's main purposes are fundamental research in high-resolution transmission electron microscopy method development as well as respective applications coming along with topical problems in solid state research and energy research. For these purposes the ER-C runs several state-of-the-art transmission electron microscopes and develops customed software solutions to be used for e.g. for the exit wave retrieval purposes or the measurement of higher-order lens aberrations.
  The ER-C was founded in Aachen on 27 January 2004 by means of a contract signed by the chairman of Forschungszentrum Jülich Joachim Treusch and RWTH Aachen University's rector Burkhard Rauhut.
context_section_description: The ER-C presently houses 13 electron microscopes manufactured by FEI Company and JEOL Ltd. ranging from standard scanning electron microscopes to highly specialised Titan series transmission electron microscopes equipped with aberration correction units and offering an information limit well below 100 picometres. The majority of ER-C instrumental resources is available for use by both in-house and external users.
  On 12 December 2008 the ER-C and FEI Company announced that a next generation electron microscope with a record resolution of 50 picometres will be made available to a broad user community from 2010. The instrument known as PICO, which is equipped with a special unit allowing for the correction of the chromatical aberration for the first time in electron microcopy, allows to see details measuring only a fraction of an atomic diameter and thus at the absolute limits of optical systems. This enables atomic structures for materials in energy research and microelectronics to be investigated more precisely than has ever been possible before. On 4 November 2009 work began on an extension to the ER-C to house the PICO microscope with a groundbreaking ceremony and the building was formally inaugurated on 29 September 2011. The PICO microscope was inaugurated on 29 February 2012.
caption: PICO electron microscope characterised by an information limit of 50 picometres.
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