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Little is known about the characteristics of the subatomic world. Scientists have some knowledge of how waves and atoms behave in environments of only a few trillionths of a meter, but nobody has seen it firsthand. Using the STEHM, scientists can begin making detailed measurements of previously unknown sub-atomic characteristics. Those measurements, in turn, will be a valuable roadmap in designing nanotechnology.

The machine is the brainchild of long-time microscopy researcher Rodney Herring. About 10 years ago, while working as a microgravity scientist at the Canadian Space Agency, Mr. Herring hit upon the idea of assembling a world-class microscope by marrying together two microscopy technologies being developed in Japan and Germany. Numerous failed grant applications later, in 2007 he finally secured $4-million from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and another $4 million from the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund. Now, as the director of UVic’s newly-minted Advanced Microscopy Lab, he is laying the ground work for the STEHM.

Although the race to build ever-more-powerful microscopes isn’t as testosterone fuelled as, say, breaking the land-speed record, it is still a point of competition among scientists. “There is a real race, always, in science and technology,” says Mr. Herring.

Located at the end of a concrete stairwell, the Advanced Microscopy Lab is eerily insulated from the rest of the campus. Due to the sensitivity of their equipment, advanced microscopy researchers spend much of their career underground. Lab manager Elaine Humphrey spent years at an electron microscopy lab at the University of British Columbia and describes having been oblivious to rain, windstorms and even earthquakes. Of course, it’s important to make sure your microscopy lab has full-spectrum lights. “In the winter, we go to work in the dark and then we go home in the dark — these keep us sane,” she says.