Report on 2024 UK-APT Workshop for IFES

The 2nd occurrence of the UK APT national workshop took place on 14th November 2024 in St. Catherine’s College Oxford, organized by the Oxford Atom Probe group, with logistical support from Blue Scientific. It received £1000 of support from IFES, along with further financial support from Cameca/Blue Scientific and Oxford Atomic. This one-day workshop was designed to include zero registration/food costs for attendees, to maximise inclusion and to continue to build the UK community.

In total there were 55 attendees. These included a high proportion of graduate researchers from the three universities currently equipped with Cameca LEAP systems in the UK (Oxford, Imperial College and Brunel), along with researchers regularly engaging in their own AP activities from Bristol, Glasgow and industry nuclear partners NNL and UKAEA.

Talks were by invitation and were broadly themed around the issues of optimizing sample preparation and running efficacy. Topics included a mix of metallurgy, geo/planetary applications, cryo liquid-solid interfaces, semiconductor devices and nuclear materials. The schedule also featured a talk presented by David Reinhard from Cameca, and a lunch poster session for delegates to showcase their work and network. Following a drinks reception at the end of the event, many attendees engaged further in networking over dinner in Oxford.

Following the event, Blue Scientific sent out a survey capturing delegates feedback from this event and their views around future meetings. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with a high proportion also in favour of potentially extending the workshop into a second day.

Organisation of both events to date has been by James Douglas, Paul Bagot and James Famelton. All three wish to create a more formal structure to better support the future of these events, therefore discussions are underway to include one industrial seat and one further academic seat to a steering committee of 5 (Oxford, Imperial College and Brunel to retain permanent status in this). This group will seek to engage closely with IFES and the European AP community to build on the success of both events to date.

2023 UK APT Workshop

The 2023 UK APT Workshop was held at the Imperial College London White City Campus on October 26th and 27th with the support of Cameca, Blue Scientific and the International Field Emission Society (IFES).  The workshop consisted of two days, the first being presentations and discussion and the second being practical sessions for atom probe best practice in association with Cameca and demonstrations of the vacuum/cryogenic transfer capabilities with Imperial College London’s new centre for the Cryo Microscopy of Materials.

There were 50 attendees for the presentation and discussion and 15 attendees for the practical sessions. Presentations were given from representatives from atom probe users from Imperial College London, the University of Oxford, Brunel University, the UK Atomic Energy Agency about how atom probe is currently being used in their research, along with an invited presentation from Cameca on atom probe best practice.

Attendees included representatives from: Imperial College London The University of Oxford Brunel University  The University of Cambridge The Open University  The University of Bristol The UK Atomic Energy Agency Blue Scientific Cameca Instruments