The TEAM Project

Pioneering developments of aberration-correcting electron optics have created the unprecedented opportunity to directly observe the atomic-scale order, electronic structure, and dynamics of individual nanoscale structures by advanced transmission electron microscopy. It is foreseeable that aberration corrected electron microscopes exhibiting deep sub-Ångstrom resolution with single atom sensitivity and an increased time - and energy resolution can be constructed within the next few years. The substantial expense of developing and maintaining such aberration-corrected electron microscopes is beyond the ability of individual investigators or even university centers. To address this need, the Department of Energy’s electron beam microcharacterization centers proposed the development of a new generation of advanced electron microscopes built around aberration-correcting optics. The TEAM project (Transmission Electron Aberration-corrected Microscope) was initiated as a collaborative proposal involving five DOE-supported electron beam microscopy efforts, located at Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory. The vision for the TEAM project is the idea of providing a sample space for electron scattering experiments in a tunable electron optical environment by removing some of the constraints that have limited electron microscopy until now. The resulting improvements in resolution, the increased space around the sample, and the possibility of exotic electron-optical settings will enable new types of experiments.

The project was presented to the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in October 2002. As a DOE Project, TEAM is subject to specific rules that control its progress via a series of critical decisions CD0-CD4. CD0 (Mission Need) was granted in May 2004, CD1 (Alternative Selection and Cost Range) was signed in September 2005 after a critical design review in April 2005. The Conceptual Design review was signed in April 2006, and the CD2/3 review (Approval of Project Baseline/Readiness to Execute) was signed in December 2006.

TEAM is guided by a scientific advisory committee. The project is a collaboration of several DOE-funded efforts and two commercial partners (FEI and CEOS). Led by the National Center for Electron Microscopy, the project pursues several key developments in parallel, with each partner responsible for a specific set of tasks (ORNL – STEM corrector, UIUC – beta stage, ANL – Cc corrector, CEOS – correctors, FEI – column). The TEAM project is part of DOE’s 20-year roadmap of Facilities for the Future of Science, and after its completion in 2009, the instrument will be made available to the scientific user community at the National Center for Electron Microscopy. The machine is being implemented in two stages – TEAM 0.5 will become available as a user facility in October 2008 and TEAM I in October 2009.

TEAM Outreach

Input from the scientific community in the form of workshops, discussions and presentations has been important in shaping the project since its inception.


A first TEAM workshop was held in July 2000 at Argonne National Laboratory (TEAM Report 2000.pdf).


The second TEAM workshop took place in July 2002 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (TEAM Report 2002.pdf).


The third TEAM workshop was held at the annual meeting of the Microscopy Society of America in San Antonio, August 8, 2003 (TEAM Report 2003.pdf).


Following the TEAM workshops in 2000, 2002 and 2003 a Focused Interest Group on “Materials Research in an Aberration-Free Environment” was founded within the Microscopy Society of America.


2004 TEAM Workshop + Focused Interest Group
A Focused Interest Group workshop was held immediately preceding the annual MSA meeting in Savannah. This meeting attracted ~150 participants and covered a broad range of issues in two half-day sessions. The meeting documented the significant interest in this subject within the microscopy community (FIG Savannah 2004.pdf).


2005 TEAM Workshop + Focused Interest Group
Following the success of the premeeting congress under the Focused Interest Group format, a second focused interest group on materials characterization in an aberration-free environment was held at the annual MSA meeting in Honolulu. This meeting was incorporated as a symposium under the regular meeting program. Over a two-day period, scientists from 9 different countries presented 32 contributions to an audience varying between 100 – 300 participants. The symposium stimulated a comparison of STEM and TEM performance, gave application examples, and provided an update on progress that was made in terms of instrumentation by manufacturers FEI, JEOL, Nion, and Zeiss (FIG Honolulu 2005.pdf).


2005 In-situ TEAM Workshop
A regional workshop on Dynamics of Materials Revealed by Electron Microscopy was held at the Seitz Materials Research Laboratory, University of Illinois in June 2005. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Midwest Microscopy and Microanalysis Society and focused on needs and opportunities for in-situ microscopy in the context of instrument development under TEAM (In-situ TEAM 2005.pdf).

Periodic updates on the status of TEAM were presented at the annual meeting of the Microscopy Society of America in Honolulu in August 2005 TEAM Update 2005.pdf, at the Spanish Microscopy Society in Bilbao, July 2007 TEAM SME 2007.pdf, at the Microscopy Society of America in Fort Lauderdale, August 2007 TEAM status 2007.pdf, at the American Vacuum Society in Seattle, October 2007, at the Portuguese Microscopy Society in Coimbra, December 2007 TEAM Incomam.pdf, and at the European Microscopy Society in Aachen, July 2008 TEAM EMC 2008.pdf and at a number of university department colloquia (MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard)