By Amresh Gunasingham

THE world's most advanced microscope, which can project clear images of objects a million times smaller than a single strand of human hair, was unveiled at the National University of Singapore (NUS) yesterday.

The $1.35 million Helium Ion Microscope (HIM) is the first in Asia and one of only 12 available around the world, said Dr Nick Economou, North American president of optics manufacturer Carl Zeiss, which markets the 2,268kg device made of granite and stainless steel.

It was first made available commercially two years ago.

The microscope looks at the surface of objects by scanning the surface with a fine helium beam formed by a single atom at the tip of a 2m-tall emitter. This produces images below 0.25 nanometre in scale.

'It is literally two to three atoms in dimension which we are focusing on, which has never been done before,' said Professor Thirumalai Venky Venkatesan, the physicist who heads the new laboratory housing the microscope at NUS.

The technique is similar to a scanning electron microscope, which was first introduced in the 1960s, but this provides greater image resolution and depth of focus.

Applications lie in the areas of improving drug therapy and semiconductor manufacturing, for example, where the availability of precise measurements would improve the yield in the production of semiconductor chips.

Current technology does not allow for sufficient resolution to observe materials at the atomic scale, which is critical in precision manufacturing, explained Mr Manfred Hanke, managing director of Carl Zeiss Semiconductor Technology's business unit in South-east Asia and China.

Added Dr Economou: 'The ability to improve yield from 95 per cent to 96 per cent could mean the difference between hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue earned.'

But researchers here are particularly excited by the microscope's potential for application in the life sciences, to better understand viruses and improve targeted drug therapy, said Prof Venkatesan.

'The way a human cell operates is by its infrastructure which, like the pillars of a building, gives it form and structure. The way cells take in nutrients and expel waste products are important to understand.'

Added Dr Economou: 'If you want to treat a disease, you need to know how medicine is absorbed.'

The laboratory, located at the faculty of engineering, was officially opened yesterday. A joint collaboration was also signed between Carl Zeiss and NUS to advance research.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.