Climate change, energy security, and protecting our environment are common challenges faced by all nations. If we’re going to protect our planet going forward, we need alternatives to current fuel technology. These alternatives can potentially reduce our need for oil and reduce the amount of harmful emissions and greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere - making them an attractive replacement for internal combustion engines.

Research and development of sustainable energy devices for future generations is crucial. Such devices - including batteries, fuel cells, and solar cells - will represent a major shift in how energy is generated, stored, and converted. Today, the main research focus is on extending the lifetime of these devices, increasing their power and storage density, and improving their efficiency and safety.

It’s obvious that generating, storing, and using energy sustainably will be a key challenge going forward. And it’s a challenge in which microscopy will play an important role. After all, the performance of future devices is intrinsically linked to their micro- and nano-structure. Microscopy techniques allow researchers to dig deep, helping them investigate the reasons behind why certain materials work and why some don’t.

And better microscopy tools mean more accurate analysis. ZEISS is committed to helping you move your research forward. ZEISS provides X-ray, electron and ion microscopes, along with multi-modal solutions, that keep up with the ever-increasing demands of energy research.

Recent advances in nanotechnology have pushed the development of FIB-SEM systems that allow higher resolution imaging at lower kV. Excellent low-kV imaging performance is necessary for surface analysis of low-D materials such as MoS2, graphene monolayers, nanowires, nanoparticles, and quantum dots.