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"We had been using an insufficient vibration isolator.
Our microtribometer requires pretty significant vibration isolation..."

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Newsletter March 2025 | Menu of Newsletters

4-in-1 TEM, SEM, STEM, ED Benchtop Microscopy
with Minusk K Vibration Isolation
for Noisy Environments

Delong Instrument's LVEM5, first benchtop of its kind, combines four microscope functions with high-contrast imaging with nanoscale resolving power.


The world’s only benchtop transmission electron microscope (TEM), from Delong Instruments, combines high-contrast imaging with nanoscale resolving power. The low-voltage electron microscope can operate in four imaging modes: TEM; scanning EM (SEM); scanning transmission EM (STEM); and electron diffraction; without having to realign the column or adjust the sample, allowing both surface and transmission images of a sample to be captured from the same area of interest. Negative-stiffness vibration isolation enhances the performance of the instrument in vibration-challenged noisy environments.

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) utilizes a technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through an ultra-thin specimen, interacting with the specimen as it passes through. An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons transmitted through the specimen. The image is magnified and focused onto an imaging device, such as a fluorescent screen, a layer of photographic film, or a sensor such as a CCD camera. TEMs are capable of imaging at a significantly higher magnification than light microscopes. This enables the investigators to examine fine details, even as small as a single column of atoms. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times smaller than that of visible light, electron microscopes have a much higher resolution of approximately 0.1 nm.

TEM is a powerful tool for directly looking at small physical specimens. The microscope has evolved into a sophisticated instrument capable of providing structural and chemical information from solid materials over a wide range of magnification, to a level of spatial resolution that is unapproachable by most other techniques. The TEM offers a wide variety of imaging, diffraction, and microanalytical modes that can be used individually or in combination to extract essential information. As long as the instrument is aligned and used properly, many TEM techniques are available to researchers to reveal a wealth of information about their samples.

A recent development is the benchtop TEM, which enables a heightened level of location flexibility and user- friendly applications for researchers engaged in high-resolution microscopy.

Nanoscale from Your Benchtop
The worlds only benchtop TEM design, the LVEM5 electron microscope combines high-resolution imaging with nanoscale resolving power (Figure 1). Designed and manufactured by Delong Instruments (Delong), the low-voltage electron microscope has the ability to operate in four imaging modes: TEM; scanning electron microscopy (SEM); scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM); and electron diffraction (ED); and it provides data wit out having to realign the column or adjust the sample when changing operating modes. This allows both surface and transmission images of the sample to be captured from the same area of interest.

The LVEM5 is designed to produce detailed and meaningful image results with unmatched contrast of biologic and soft mate- rial samples and is a benefit to any lab working with, researching, or producing nano materials. The LVEM5 is approximately 90 percent smaller than classical EMs and is small enough to fit anywhere nanoscale imaging is needed. It is easy to learn, operate, and maintain, at a fraction of the cost of a conventional TEM.

Sensitivity to Vibration in Noisy Environments
TEM, like other high-resolution microscopy, is influenced by factors such as magnetic fields, barometric pressure changes, room temperature variations, grounding problems, and floor vibrations. Floor vibrations can originate from movement of outside vehicle traffic, elevators, HVAC systems, building pumps and motors, and ancillary equipment providing support for the microscope. Both vertical and horizontal vibration can negatively influence the focus and resolution of the images being viewed. The benchtop LVEM5 is designed to be well-isolated from outside fields and vibrations, providing an adequate level of stability for the instruments installed in the average lab environments. However, these high-resolution instruments are most sensitive to low-frequency vibration, in the range of a few Hertz (Hz), which are prevalent in noisy environments. These low-Hz vibrations are challenging to eliminate from the microscopes environment...

In combination, the LVEM5 and negative-stiffness vibration isolation systems provide a versatile system for electron microscopy imaging in many environments for several types of samples. The small footprint of the system provides an ideal instrument for limited space environments.

Full article...




Salute to the James Webb Space Telescope - Monthly Image Share:
"JWST Image Magellanic Cloud in the Tucana Constellation"


Minus K's custom vibration isolators were used for the
Ground Testing of the James Webb Space Telescope


Earlier Headlines:       

-Keck Planet Finder, in Search of Exoplanets

-Featured Product: CM-1 Compact High Capacity Vibration Isolator

-Supporting Sub-Angstrom Materials Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

-Single-molecule Microscopy Techniques and Negative-Stiffness Vibration

-NASA’s Lunar Laser Communications to replace traditional radio communications in space

-New Video About Minus K Shown on Bloomberg Television

- NEW CT-10 Ultra-Thin Low-Height Tabletop Vibration Isolator at only 2.7" high

- 30th Anniversary History Timeline

- 300 leading universities and private and government laboratories
in 52 countries use Minus K Technology


- Previous Newsletters

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Compact CM-1 Low Frequency Vibration Isolator


The CM-1 is a compact high capacity, low-frequency negative-stiffness isolator. As with all Minus K isolators, they are completely passive and use no air or electricity. The isolators can be combined into multi isolator systems to support heavy payloads while taking up very little room themselves.

  • Dimensions: 7.875" W x 7.875" D x 8.5" H (200mm W x 200mm D x 216mm H)
  • Vertical natural frequency of 1/2 Hz or less can be achieved over the entire load range.
  • Horizontal natural frequency is load dependent. 1/2 Hz or less can be achieved at or near the nominal load.

Get better isolation than your air table
KEEP YOUR your table top
and replace the air legs with our CM-1 isolators.
No need for air compressors, air lines or electricity




CM-1 Video

Pricing & sizes for CM-1

Specifications (pdf)


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Keck Planet Finder, in Search of Exoplanets
Five Minus K negative stiffness vibration isolators supporting the next gen KPF optical spectrometer inside a vacuum chamber.




Astronomers have confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets orbiting distant stars. There are a few aspects that are needed to characterize an exoplanet. One is the size of the planet, and the other is the mass of the planet.

Space-based missions, such as the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) launched in 2018, find exoplanets through events called transits, where a planet periodically blocks part of the light from its host star. These space-based missions do the precision photometry that is used to derive both the size of the planet - how big it is physically, the planet's diameter - and how far away from the star it is. TESS finds the most promising exoplanets orbiting our nearest and brightest stars, Earth-sized and super-Earth-sized exoplanets which are no larger than twice the size of Earth.

moving into position the Keck optical spectrometer on minusk vibration isolators

Once space-based observations of an exoplanet are made, follow-up ground-based measurements are needed to characterize the mass of the planet. This is achieved by determining how fast the planets star is moving, and its radial velocity, and needs to be performed with extreme precision, which to date has only been demonstrated from a ground-based location. Once measurements of the size and the mass of the planet are known, its density can be determined, which enables an assessment of the planets composition - whether it is a gas giant or a small rocky planet, or something in between.

Keck Planet Finder
Ground-based radial velocity (RV) measurements are made from dozens of observatories around the world. Many are located at smaller facilities where routine observation is possible. To reach the precision to characterize earth-like planets, RV measurements need to be made from large telescopes at exquisite observing sites.

Until recently, many ground-based radial velocity measurements were performed with the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES), located at the W.M. Keck Observatory (WKMO) on the summit of 13,796-ft Mauna Kea in Hawaii. HIRESs precision measurements can spot stars moving back and forth or wobbling, at a speed of about 200 cm/second.

But scientists wanted to push the technology further to permit locating even smaller planets that exert a weaker tug on their host stars. A planets gravity causes this solar wobbling, very slightly affecting the movement of the star. More massive planets with higher gravity are easier to detect than smaller rocky planets.

This led to the development of the Keck Planet Finder (KPF), a next-generation optical spectrometer, also located at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, that saw first light in November 2022. Like HIRES, KPF was designed to discover and characterize extrasolar planets using the radial velocity method, but with much higher precision, capable of detecting stellar motions of only 30 cm/second

First envisioned in 2014, KPF has been jointly designed and built by the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) in Berkeley, California, and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

moving into position the Keck optical spectrometer on minusk vibration isolators

Since its inception in 1959, SSL has participated in over 50 NASA space science missions, including the Apollo, Mars, Discovery, and Explorer programs, as well as many international space missions, said Kodi Rider, project manager of Keck Planet Finder at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab. KPF is focused to not only find smaller rocky planets, but ones in the habitable zones of their stars. Its precision enables unprecedented measurements of the masses, orbits, and compositions of smaller planets.

Thermal Stability
KPF was designed from the ground up to track the spectral fingerprints of stars to better than one part-per-billion precision. This scale of measurement represents a significant technological challenge and required every layer of the KPF system to be optimized to maximize performance...

Full article...
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New Video About Minus K Shown on Bloomberg Television
Produced by World's Best Television




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The MK52


NASA Telescope Project

How Our Isolators Work


Spacecraft Vibration Isolation On the Ground

Minus K Technology Inc., Vibration Isolation Systems
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