Room design for high-performance electron microscopy

Aberration correctors correct aberrations, not instabilities. Rather, as spatial resolution improves, a microscope's sensitivity to room environment becomes more noticeable, not less. Room design is now an essential part of the microscope installation process. Previously ignorable annoyances like computer fans, desk lamps and that chiller in the service corridor now may become the limiting factors in the microscopes performance. We discuss methods to quantitatively characterize the instrument's response to magnetic, mechanical, acoustical and thermal disturbances and thus predict the limits that the environment places on imaging and spectroscopy.