The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavelengths. In the UK, academia, industry and the central laboratories took up the challenge from the earliest days to develop these systems for a broad range of applications. This historical review looks at the contribution the UK has made to the advancement of the technology, the development of systems and components and their exploitation over the last 60 years.

Localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR), collective electron oscillations in nanoparticles, are being heavily scrutinized for applications in chemical and biological sensing, as well as in prototype nanophotonic devices. This phenomenon exhibits an acute dependence on the particle’s size, shape, composition, and environment. The detailed characterization of the structure-function relationship of nanoparticles is obscured by ensemble averaging. Consequently, single-particle data must be obtained to extract useful information from polydisperse reaction mixtures. Recently, a correlated high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) LSPR technique has been developed and applied to silver nanocubes. We report here a second generation of experiments using this correlation technique, in which statistical analysis is performed on a large number of single particles. The LSPR dependence on size, shape, material, and environment was probed using silver right bipyramids, silver cubes, and gold cubes. It was found that the slope of the dependence of LSPR peak on size for silver bipyramids increases as the edges become sharper. Also, a plasmon shift of 96 nm was observed between similar silver and gold cubes, while a shift of 26 nm was observed, for gold cubes, between substrates of refractive index (RI) of 1.5 and 2.05.

For many years, a fundamental problem in contact mechanics, both tribology and indentation problems, has been the inability to see what is taking place—the buried-interface problem. Over the past few years, there have been developments whereby it has become possible to perform contact mechanics experiments in situ within a transmission electron microscope. These new experiments have been enabled by both the miniaturization of sensors and actuators and improvements in their mechanical stability and force sensitivity. New information is now becoming available about the nanoscale processes of sliding, wear, and tribochemical reactions, as well as microstructural evolution during nanoindentation such as dislocation bursts and phase transformations. This article provides an overview of some of these developments, in terms of both the advances in technical instrumentation and some of the novel scientific insights.

A brief overview of transmission electron microscopy as it applies specifically to obtaining surface crystallographic information is presented. This review will encompass many of the practical aspects of obtaining surface crystal information from a transmission electron microscope, including equipment requirements, experimental techniques, sample preparation methods, data extraction and image processing, and complimentary techniques.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2004 in Savannah, Georgia, USA, August 1–5, 2004.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2004 in Savannah, Georgia, USA, August 1–5, 2004.