Description: Synchrotron-based photoemission electron microscopy combined with X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy to map chemistry, crystal orientation, and structure at ~10 nm resolution in biominerals and materials.
Uses X-ray photoemission electron microscopy (X-PEEM) with XANES spectroscopy at synchrotron light sources to map crystal orientation and amorphous-to-crystalline transitions at ~10 nm resolution in biominerals (coral skeletons, sea urchin spines, mollusk nacre, tooth enamel).
King develops polarization- and time-resolved PEEM together with ultrafast (scanning) transmission electron microscopy to image charge-carrier, exciton, and phonon dynamics with nanoscale (down to ~25 nm) spatial resolution at buried interfaces and in 2D materials such as black phosphorus. Her group is now retrofitting a high-throughput PEEM, in collaboration with the Kasthuri lab, for whole-brain connectomics -- an unpreferred/borderline inclusion since the core program is materials-science imaging rather than biosensing, but one that is directly extending resolution-pushing microscopy into neuroscience.