South Africa is planning to invest R80-million over the next three years in the acquisition of a High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscope (HRTem), including its control and supporting systems, training, and servicing contracts, to ensure that the country will be internationally competitive in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

To cite only one example, expertise in nanotechnology will be essential in order to develop and manufacture advanced materials.

The HRTem will have aberration-corrected lenses and will also be able to analyse the samples under study, in addition to imaging them - it will thus be a laboratory in one instrument.

It will be able to resolve individual atoms (which will appear as spheres: it will not be possible to distinguish the nucleus and the electrons), and will be one of the most advanced instruments of its type in the world.

The instrument will be based at the new National Centre for High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy, which is being established at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in the Eastern Cape province.

The programme is being executed by the National Research Forum, which falls under the Department of Science and Technology, with support from a number of South African companies: Sasol (coal-to-liquids and petrochemicals manufacturer), the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (better known as Necsa), PBMR (which is developing the fourth-generation pebble bed modular reactor nuclear technology), and Element Six (part of the De Beers group).

The creation of the new centre, and the aquisition of the HRTem, are in line with the country's National Nanotechnology Strategy, and the abovenamed companies intend to use the instrument for their own research and development (R&D).

Without a local HRTem, these companies would have to do their R&D overseas, probably in collaborative ventures, which would result in any intellectual property having to be shared.

It is hoped to place an order for the instrument before the end of March - the competiting bidders are Netherlands-based FEI, Jeol of Japan, and Germany's Zeiss. Whoever wins, it will take about a year to manufacture the machine, which is very complex. The instrument and its host Centre are not expected to be fully operational until 2011.

Other emerging market countries, including South Africa's Ibsa partners India and Brazil, already have their own HRTem instruments.