Hummingbird Wins 2026 Microscopy Today Innovation Award

Hummingbird Scientific has received a Microscopy Today Innovation Award for the Operando Plasma Transmission Electron Microscopy Sample Holder, an in situ TEM platform that enables real-time, nanometer-scale imaging of materials as they react in atmospheric-pressure plasma.

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The award recognizes innovations that provide useful new capabilities for the microscopy and microanalysis community. This recognition highlights the importance of Plasma-TEM as a new experimental approach for studying plasma-material interactions directly, rather than inferring reaction behavior after the fact.

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Developed in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, including Peter Bruggeman and Jae Hyun Nam, alongside Hummingbird Scientific’s Daan Hein Alsem and Norman Salmon, the Operando Plasma TEM holder combines a purpose-built TEM holder with a microfabricated gas-cell architecture. The system allows researchers to generate plasma inside the microscope while preserving electron-transparent imaging conditions.

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In its first published demonstration, the platform was used to observe hydrogen-plasma-driven reduction of magnetite nanoparticles, capturing particle shrinkage, crack formation, and transformation from magnetite to metallic iron in real time. These observations help researchers study reaction kinetics, plasma-driven mechanisms, and nanoscale material behavior under active plasma conditions.

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The technology is relevant to plasma-assisted catalysis, materials processing, semiconductor manufacturing, nanoparticle synthesis, and emerging sustainable materials technologies, including hydrogen plasma reduction for lower-carbon metal production.

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By enabling researchers to directly observe plasma-driven reactions as they happen, the Operando Plasma TEM Sample Holder expands what can be measured inside the electron microscope and supports the development of more efficient plasma-enabled technologies.

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Reference:

Nam, J.H., Mkhoyan, K.A., Alsem, D.H. et al. Revealing the mechanisms of non-thermal plasma-enabled iron oxide reduction through nanoscale operando TEM. Nat Commun16, 7537 (2025)