ZEISS ZEN Connect

Connect Multimodal Data in your Materials Research Lab

Expand Correlative Microscopy and Perform Smart Data Management

Overlay and organize images from any source: Combine multiple perspectives of your sample across scales and imaging modalities. ZEISS ZEN Connect software enables you to bring all imaging technologies together – ZEISS or not – to answer your questions.

Acquire an overview image
Move to your light, confocal or electron microscope and align once
Use the overview image for navigation
Or simply work with ZEN Connect to align and overlay images from any source
Save all multi-modal data in well-organized projects

ZEISS ZEN Connect always shows your data in context.

Get unique insights, gain efficiency and save time - no matter whether you are a materials researcher at university, a multi-user facility or an industrial lab.

Often, when your aim is to characterize the properties of your sample comprehensively, you will need to combine multiple microscopy modalities or contrasting techniques.

Whether you are investigating batteries for e-mobility or experimenting with additive manufactured parts. You may be interested in raw materials like oil. Or assess whether inclusions in a material sample are metallic. In these cases and many other, a single contrast or microscopy method is not always enough to answer all your questions.

Benefit from having more than just a single microscopy method at hand.

Highlights

Product spectrum for ZEN Connect for Materials

Overlay and Align All Your Images

Load complex multi-dimensional images or just simple overview images from your mobile phone
It makes no difference whether your imaging technology is from ZEISS or from third parties
All image data can be aligned and shown in context
ZEISS ZEN Connect keeps their metadata so long as external images adhere to the well-established Bio-Formats standard

ZEN Connect for Materials - easy navigation

Acquire Overview Images for Easy Navigation

Mount your specimen on a sample holder from ZEISS or any other independent one
Image your sample with a ZEISS stereo microscope or any other low magnification system
Use the overview image to navigate and find your ROIs
Find all subsequent images in context as you zoom in and out across the borders of resolution domains and imaging technologies
Bring your stage to the right position with a simple click on the overview image and examine or re-evaluate your ROIs

Smart Data Management

All images are saved in database projects with an intuitive label attached automatically
Stay on top of things – during your experiments or months afterwards
Find all your images and their connected datasets
Search for microscope type and imaging parameters with the filter function

Applications

Materials Research in E-Mobility

The future of e-mobility depends on understanding permanent magnets. Start with acquiring an overview image. Visualize magnetic domains with Kerr microscopy. Identify promising magnetic phases. Reveal details and increase resolution from micro- to nanometer scale. Draw conclusions about the correlation between the sample morphology and magnetic parameters. Analyze your data in a wider context, connecting large field-of-view images with the best possible resolution at all times during the experiment.

Large-scale overview, acquired with ZEISS Axio Imager

Correlated high-resolution image acquired with ZEISS Sigma 300 VP

Large-scale overview, acquired with ZEISS Axio Imager (top), magnetic domaine structure visualized by Kerr microscopy (top right) and correlated high-resolution image acquired with ZEISS Sigma 300 VP (bottom right). Courtesy of T. Schubert, Aalen University, Germany.

Materials Research on Inclusions in Calcium-treated Steel

Calcium treatment prevents detrimental manganese sulfide (MnS) inclusions from forming in steel. These inclusions can elongate on rolling and cause anisotropy of the steel. When you modify MnS inclusions to form much harder calcium sulfide (CaS) inclusions, they will stay globular and help maintain the isotropy of the steel. Stitch images together into one large-scale overview image of the whole sample. Identify and screen large quantities of inclusions quickly. Subsequently, you will want to move from overview to detail. Move to an SEM for high resolution imagery. Relocate the region of interest to select specific inclusions for EDS analyses.

Sample Overview and detail of one inclusion (inset) acquired by ZEISS Axio Observer

Higher magnification SEM image (ZEISS Crossbeam 550) and EDS maps of an elongated MnS inclusion

Second sample with Ca treatment SEM image of a globular CaS inclusion and EDS maps

First sample, without Ca treatment: Sample Overview and detail of one inclusion (inset) acquired by ZEISS Axio Observer (left); Higher magnification SEM image (ZEISS Crossbeam 550) and EDS maps of an elongated MnS inclusion (center). Second sample with Ca treatment SEM image of a globular CaS inclusion and EDS maps (right). Courtesy of J. Russel, Swansea University, UK.

Materials Research in Oil Recovery, Nuclear Waste Disposal, and Carbon Capture and Storage

Understand the pore structures exhibited by carbonate rocks. Characterize flow, reaction and transport across a wide range of length scales and strong structural heterogeneity. Gain access to crucial information during oil recovery, carbon capture and storage, and nuclear waste disposal. Image a large area by using automated light microscopy. Import the image into ZEISS ZEN Intellesis for full classification of the macro-structure, using variations in color, texture and intensity to identify macro-pores, solid rock grains and microporous grains. Use these data to identify regions of interest for high resolution field emission scanning electron microscopy. You will see variations in local nanometer-scaled pore structure, viewed in the context of macroscopic heterogeneity.

Overlay of macroscopic segmentation (left) and automated light microscopy image (right) showing the macroporosity and microporous grains.

Correlative overlay of high resolution light microscopy data and nano-scale electron microscopy data.

Overlay of segmented (left) high resolution light microscopy data (right) showing the pore structure in more detail.

High resolution nano-scale electron microscope data.

Accessories

ZEISS ZEN Data Storage

Central Data Management in the Connected Laboratory

As digitization continues to improve microscopic investigations, you’re facing an ever-growing mass of images and data that needs to be managed, all the more so in multi-user laboratories. ZEISS ZEN Data Storage enables you to separate image and data acquisition from post-acquisition works, making everyone in the lab work more efficiently. And even your collaborators benefit from access to data and sharing functionalities.

Correlative Microscopy with ZEISS Shuttle & Find

Benefit from an easy-to-use, productive workflow to overlay data from your light microscope and scanning electron microscope with ZEISS Shuttle & Find software module. Use a specimen holder with fiducial markers to generate a coordinate system within seconds. Define regions of interest in your sample with the light microscope. Relocate the ROIs in the electron microscope and get access to high resolution imaging and analytics. Finally, correlate the images taken by different microscopical techniques.

Learn more about Correlative Microscopy with ZEISS Shuttle & Find

ZEISS ZEN Intellesis for Image Segmentation in Microscopy

Use the power of deep learning to easily segment your images and to get access to their real value - the data they provide. Image segmentation lays the foundation for all subsequent image analysis steps. ZEISS ZEN Intellesis uses deep learning and Python to easily create reproducible segmentation results, even for non-experts. Train the software once and then ZEISS ZEN Intellesis can segment a batch of hundreds of images automatically. You save time and minimize user bias.

Learn more about ZEISS ZEN Intellesis for Image Segmentation in Microscopy