Michael J. Zachman is a Senior Staff Scientist and Group Leader of the electron Microscopy and MicroÅnalysis (e–MMÅ) Group in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Michael received his BS in Physics from Purdue University in 2012 and his PhD in Applied Physics from Cornell University in 2018. He came to ORNL in 2018 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the CNMS and began as a Staff Scientist in 2019.
Michael’s research interests lie in advancing and applying electron microscopy techniques to study the structure and properties of quantum and energy materials. During his PhD, Michael developed cryogenic focused ion beam (cryo-FIB) and low-dose cryogenic scanning transmission electron microscopy (cryo-STEM) and spectroscopy techniques to provide access to nanoscale information at intact solid-liquid and hard-soft interfaces extracted from bulk materials and devices. While at ORNL, Michael has worked to develop four-dimensional (4D)-STEM techniques to reveal new information about quantum, battery, and catalyst materials down to the atomic scale, automation techniques to provide statistically relevant high-resolution information about complex systems, and custom data analysis routines for a wide array of data. Currently, Michael continues to advance cryogenic FIB techniques to provide enhanced access to buried interfaces in energy devices across a wide range of length scales, as well as low-dose, high-contrast cryo-(S)TEM imaging and spectroscopy methods and corresponding AI-based data analysis tools to provide high-resolution structural, compositional, and bonding information about materials sensitive to the electron beam.
