Cathodoluminescence is light generated by irradiation of a material with an electron beam.
The control of light at the nanoscale is becoming more and more important as a result of the increasing use of optoelectronic devices and materials. It also opens up technological opportunities, such as highly sensitive chemical sensing and identification, improving performance of photodetectors or light emitting devices, and increasing the efficiency of solar cells.
The characterization of optical properties at the nanoscale is a challenge due to the diffraction limit which is inherentin optical techniques. As a result, cathodoluminescence is an increasingly popular technology with a wide range of applications for the development and characterization of materials and systems.

High-performance cathodoluminescence
The SPARC cathodoluminescence system offers ultimate resolution and reliability. A large, ultraflat parabolic mirror is mounted on a high precision stage. All optics are free-space coupled, ensuring maximum photon yield. The system is modular and open, allowing for the addition of multiple
optical components and a wide range of detectors. The software makes it possible to add functionality. While the system is open and modular, DELMIC’s commitment to ease-of-use and high performance ensures that your system is turn-key ready.
The system is closely integrated with the scanning electron microscope. This is seen in both the hardware and the software. The mounting of the hardware is done on a vacuum port in such a way that it is minimally invasive for the SEM. It takes less than five minutes to bring the SEM from CL mode back to its full original configuration.

The SPARC opens up new avenues of research such as electron beam induced nanophotonics, but its sensitivity and ease of use also make it possible to breathe life into more`traditional’ applications of cathodoluminescence.
The SPARC offers users advanced understanding of semiconductor and optoelectronic devices. The high
collection efficiency even allows the investigation of poor emitters of light, such as silicon-based materials.
Cathodoluminescence gives an additional contrast mechanism for materials inspection, failure analysis, geology, and petrology applications. CL imaging is an ideal tool, because it is fast and it provides information, not easily available by other techniques.
For both the pharmaceutical as well as the life sciences industry, CL can be used to screen active pharmaceutical ingredients and offers spectral fingerprinting.

Modularity
The SPARC has an open design. Optical boxes that can easily be replaced enable you to extend and add features to the system as your research needs evolve.

Unsurpassed sensitivity
The mirror is made of a unique type of aluminium: its tiny grain size ensures maximum flatness of the mirror, enhancing reflectivity, decreasing measurement time and reducing artifacts.

Reproducibility
The mirror’s precision stage ensures proper alignment between experiments. This makes it possible to do reproducible and quantitatively comparable measurements between different samples.

Ease-of-use
The operating software is straightforward to use and allows for easy alignment, acquisition and analysis of the results. The software can control the electron beam to allow for acquisition of electron images and to properly trigger the optical acquisition. With no adjustments in your sample preparations, you can take advantage of the high spectral resolution and extra contrast provided by electron microscopy.

Spectral mode
When the SPARC system is used in spectral mode, the light from the mirror is focused on a grating, as part of a Czerny-Turner spectrograph. A silicon detector is connected to the spectrograph resulting in optimized detection over the range of 400-900 nm. By scanning the e-beam across the sample, a hyperspectral image is made.

Angular mode
The SPARC provides the unique option to acquire angle-resolved images. Instead of focusing the light signal on a grating, an image of the mirror is projected onto an imaging camera. This allows for the detection of the directionality of the emitted light; also known as momentum spectroscopy. In this mode a filter wheel is used to spectrally distinguish the different emission wavelengths.