Andrew Minor

Research Expertise and Interest

metallurgy, nanomechanics, electron microscopy, in situ TEM, electron microscopy of soft materials

Research Description

Andrew Minor is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and also holds a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he is the Facility Director of the National Center for Electron Microscopy in the Molecular Foundry. He has over 280 publications in the fields of nanomechanics, metallurgy, electron characterization of soft matter and in situ transmission electron microscopy technique development. Minor’s honors include the LBL Materials Science Division Outstanding Performance Award (2006 & 2010), the AIME Robert Lansing Hardy Award from TMS (2012) and the Burton Medal from the Microscopy Society of America (2015). In 2023 he served as the President of the Microscopy Society of America.

In the News

Going Cold: The Future of Electron Microscopy

Researchers use electron microscopy to produce high-resolution images at the atomic scale of everything from composite nanomaterials to single proteins. The technology provides invaluable information on the texture, chemistry, and structure of these materials. Research over the past few decades has focused on achieving higher resolutions: being able to image materials at progressively finer levels with more sensitivity and contrast. But what does the future hold for electron microscopy?

World-Leading Microscopes Take Candid Snapshots of Atoms in Their ‘Neighborhoods’

We can directly see the hidden world of atoms thanks to electron microscopes, first developed in the 1930s. Today, electron microscopes, which use beams of electrons to illuminate and magnify a sample, have become even more sophisticated, allowing scientists to take real-world snapshots of materials with a resolution of less than half the diameter of a hydrogen atom. Now, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are pushing the boundaries of electron microscopy even further through a powerful technique called 4D-STEM, a term that stands for “2D raster of 2D diffraction patterns using scanning transmission electron microscopy.”

Look inside a nano testing machine

Video shows how Berkeley scientists use amazing equipment to develop materials to make future nuclear power plants more reliable and durable.

Testing irradiated materials on the nanoscale

Radiation damages metal and other materials, which can be a problem in nuclear power plants. UC Berkeley/LBNL materials scientist Andrew Minor and colleagues have developed a way to test nano-sized samples to determine how well they withstand the effects of radiation.

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