Scienta Omicron’s first DA20 analyser has been shipped!
During 2019 Scienta Omicron developed and released a new electron analyser for ARPES and XPS, the DA20. “Drawing upon the strengths of the DA30-L and its patented ground-breaking deflection technology, the DA20 received a completely new lens design that brings deflection capability to a new family of compact analysers. If you are looking to expand your research group’s capability with ARPES, the DA20 is an excellent choice,” says Scienta Omicron CEO Johan Åman. The new DA20 is designed not only to avoid sample rotation, but is also optimised for the measurement of photoelectrons with low kinetic energies, making it a great product for time resolved ARPES (tr-ARPES).
The deflection capability of the DA20 allows researchers to perform full cone ARPES measurements without sample rotation. By avoiding sample rotation experimental geometry between the excitation source, the sample, and the analyser is preserved, eliminating its influence on the results.
Benefits of avoiding sample rotation:
- In the case of small flakes and excitation spots, any sample rotation will cause movements of the excitation spot on the sample and away from the flake.
- For polarised light sources avoiding sample rotation means that the polarisation direction relative to the sample surface stays the same.
- Intensity modulations due to changing matrix element effects due to sample rotation are avoided meaning they do not impact the results.
Using deflection capability it becomes easier to navigate reciprocal space and fine tune the sample orientation, allowing for fast sample alignment with high precision and accuracy leading to easier interpretation of the measurements in less time. Reducing the total time for an experiment will reduce the amount of condensed gasses on the extremely cold sample surface and lead to clearer measurements.
The new DA20 lens design is also optimised for measuring photoelectrons with low kinetic energy, while covering a large energy window. A typical example of this application is tr-ARPES, where it is important to take advantage of the low number of generated photoelectrons by reducing the necessity to scan the energy axis. Measuring the angular distribution of low kinetic energy electrons is challenging because they are very sensitive to any form of distortion (including lens aberrations and local electric fields). Maintaining a large energy window at these low kinetic energies requires managing chromatic aberrations. The DA20 lens design overcomes both the challenge of low kinetic energies and large energy windows making it an excellent instrument for tr-ARPES. Due to the short laser pulses in tr-ARPES the energy distribution of the pulse is broad which is perfectly compatible to the DA20’s energy resolution, making it a good alternative to the highest resolution analysers of the DA30-L type. The DA20 is also compatible with our newly released Delay Line Detector (DLD) allowing to extend the angular and energy resolved measurements with a precise timing for each signal event.
The shipping of the first DA20 represents a major milestone for our team of engineers and software developers. It comes with PEAK, Scienta Omicron’s new control and measurement software. PEAK features a modular system architecture design, with component specific servers accessible via a network. The included graphical user interface builds upon the same PEAK API that can be accessed directly by our customers to remotely control the analyser with their own programs and to integrate the analyser with complex auxiliary experimental setups such as beam lines. The PEAK vision simplifies the integration of other types of equipment such as excitations sources and manipulators.
Product Manager for the DA20, Dr. Timo Wätjen, says that, “We are excited about the first shipment of the brand new DA20 to our customer. Our team successfully overcame several challenges designing the completely new lens leading to a very versatile ARPES product. The DA20 provides both a good base for customers who want to add ARPES capabilities to their labs and for experts in the time resolved field. The DA20 can be installed into existing systems replacing analysers without deflection capability, or can be installed into a brand new system solutions such as the ARPES Lab or a Materials Innovation Platform (MIP).”
Scienta Omicron now looks forward to the successful installation and first results coming from our customer’s research group using the DA20. “Scienta Omicron is very proud to bring the DA20 into the field of Nanotechnology and Surface Science research, and to support our customers to meet their research goals. The DA20 further strengthens Scienta Omicron’s position as supplier of choice in these fields,” says CEO Johan Åman.
Contact us if you are interested in learning more about the new DA20 or other products in our wide range of solutions.
Read more about the DA20 analyser here.