Centre for Advanced Microscopy (University of Reading)

The Centre for Advanced Microscopy(CfAM) at the University of Reading, UK, is a campus-wide facility supporting researchers in life and physical sciences across the university. CfAM Staff work with research groups at Reading, other Universities, Research Organisations and Industry and provides cutting edge microscopy services and solutions for the life, engineering, medical and physical sciences. A comprehensive suite of advanced microscopes enable scientists to reveal details of structures at the atomic level  through the nano scale regime up to the macroscopic level. In parallel, the instrumentation can deliver maps of elemental composition and various properties.

CfAM offers a full consultancy service for health, food, chemical, electronic, security, polymer and other materials across commerce and manufacturing industries. It provides training courses for microscopists and technicians at other organisations who are responsible for supporting microscopy services. Founded in 2003, it contains transmission electron microscopes, scanning electron microscopes, scanning probe microscopes, and infrared & raman microscopes together with dedicated sample preparation laboratories. Each scanning electron microscopes is equipped for x-ray analysis allowing detailed elemental mapping. For one instrument both energy dispersive and wavelength dispersive instrumentation is available providing a powerful and sensitive microanalysis facility.

CfAM research areas include nanoscience, polymers,soft matter materials, catalysis, food bioscience, plant sciences and microbial science.