Honey, I Shrunk the Synchrotron: Electron Microscopy in Condensed Matter Physics

In this talk, I will present our recent experimental results using the latest generation of monochromated aberration-corrected scanning and transmission electron microscopes (STEM). Four examples of how one can reveal the magnetic ordering and orbital ordering of materials with atomic size electron probes will be shown. We have also used the principle of detailed balance to morph the electron microscope in a primary thermometer and revealed the anharmonic behavior of materials at the nanoscale. Our efforts in studying the phonon dispersion of materials under the presence of different isotopic species will be also mentioned. Finally, current and future limitations in the experiments and requirements to reveal the magnetic moment (orbital and spin), charge ordering, crystal field splitting, spin-orbit-coupling, optical dichroism, and other physical phenomena associated with broken symmetries will be discussed.