Our Applications Engineer Jamie Goodchild was in attendance at this year’s MMC Series Conference in Manchester. He shares his insights and favourite parts of the event along with some fabulous images taken whilst he was there…

Attending the 2023 Microscience Microscopy Congress (MMC Series) Conference this year was brilliant – interesting science, engaging talks, impressive posters, and great opportunities for scientific discussions both during the day and at the social events around the conference.

This was the first time I’d been to MMC in 8 years – in fact the last time I attended I was a PhD student. It was a very different experience being there as a representative for NuNano rather than as an academic and this time I knew a lot more about AFM and a lot more people!

Overwhelmingly big - for a conference looking at the small stuff

MMC is one of the biggest events of its kind in Europe and even though I’d been before I’d forgotten just how big it was. To be honest the size of the event was a little overwhelming when I first arrived, though after I’d taken a few minutes to orient myself I was ready to tackle it head on – and what a lot there was to see. In addition to exhibitors from all major microscope companies, there were historical antique microscopes on display, heaps of RMS info and outreach, poster sessions, social events and so much more.

There were conference sessions on all types of microscopies: AFM & SPM sessions covering everything from Life Sciences to Energy Storage, as well as sessions on Electron Microscopy, Frontiers in Bioimaging, Cytometry, AI in Microscopy, Impact of Microscopy in Public Health, Modelling in Microscopy, Sustainability and Carbon Net Zero, Mass Spectrometry, the list goes on. The Imaging in Heritage Science sessions caught my attention – it was fascinating to register that it’s not all about bacteria, DNA and 2D materials – you can use microscopy for art and old violins too! I have to admit, I stuck to the AFM sessions…once an AFM nerd, always a …

Instant Connections

With just shy of 1300 people there (excluding stand reps and pre-congress event attendees) it was enormously well-attended – though of course it is a microscopy conference of which AFM is just a small albeit significant part.

One of the highlights was getting to see old colleagues and friends as well as meeting customers and people from the AFM Community ‘in real life’ for the first time. This included seeing people from around the world that I didn’t know were going to be there like Sebastian Aguayo (Chile) and Sanket Jugade (India). It highlighted that sense of being part of a global community of people and it was nice to meet people I’ve known from Twitter or from their papers face-to-face. There’s a real sense of instant connection because of us all working in the (really niche) field of AFM.

In-person meetings are so important for relationship building. We made do during Covid. It was amazing that we had the tech to allow us to have online meetings, which in turn made meetings so much more accessible to people around the world. But you cannot replace an in-person interaction, for building relationships with researchers and customers. Also, I spent time at the AFM meal giving an American advice on what to do in London, not something that could happen with an online conference!

Seeing all the AFMs in real life

It wasn’t just about seeing people ‘in real life’ either. Having the opportunity to play with or see demos from the leading AFM companies, such as Park Systems, Asylum, and Nanosurf, was a treat. We sell probes to people with a wide variety of AFMs, and I often try to provide applications support remotely for a customer. It was great to have a clearer sense of how the individual systems look and work – it’s one way in which being at the conference can help me to do my job better. It was great to see their state-of-the-art systems as many of the companies were showcasing their upgrades. Understanding how our probes fit into that and whether we need to develop something new is enormously helpful for us as a company.

‘News Team Fight Scene’ from Anchorman

Before I got there I found myself wondering about how all the rival companies would be with one another in such close proximity. Would Zeiss be fighting Nikon? Would Bruker be fighting Asylum? I was imagining a version of the ‘News Team Fight Scene’ from the movie Anchorman. Well, maybe not quite that but it was a bit of a concern how different it might be coming to a conference from a commercial point of view for the first time, having been an academic previously. No need to have worried at all of course, the atmosphere was great. Microscopists are a lovely bunch and in the end there were no competitors trying to fight me outside!

Mervyn Miles Lifetime Honorary Fellowship Award

The big event from our perspective as NuNano was to see our very own Prof Mervyn Miles, director and company co-founder receive an honorary fellowship of RMS.

It gave me a great sense of the legacy and lineage of the company to know that NuNano (and James) ‘spun out’ from Merv’s group at the University of Bristol. Witnessing first-hand the way Merv is clearly so highly thought of in the research community and to see him recognised for his invaluable contribution to microscopy was a proud moment.

There was a lovely symmetry too in NuNano friend Dr Alice Pyne (University of Sheffield) winning the AFM&SPM Award – ‘For outstanding progress made in the field of AFM & SPM’ - as Alice first did AFM during her masters at the University of Bristol with Merv. It made for a real sense of continuity, movement and progress.

Stand out AFM talks

As a (former) biophysicist, it would be easy for me to pick all the talks most related to my field and easiest for me to understand - membranes, DNA etc. – as my favourite, especially as there were many cool talks on these subjects.

However, there were a few talks that stood out to me because they are a bit different to what I studied during my research years.

Daniel Wegner (Radboud University, The Netherlands) – talked about using Home built Scanning Tunnelling Microscopes (STM) under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) down to very low temperatures e.g. 6mK (-273.144°C!), to be able to achieve atomic resolution (i.e. image individual atoms). In one application they were able to manipulate individual Caesium atoms on a semiconductor surface. They were able to arrange atoms together in different configurations to create ‘artificial atoms’, which resulted in the measurement of s and p like orbitals by STM, analogous to the electron orbitals in real atoms. They built progressively more complicated patterns and were able to mimic molecules as well as atoms, such as an artificial benzene. Then they could image what looked like bonding orbitals, similar to the the carbon-carbon bonding orbitals (sp2 hybridisation). For someone who studied undergraduate chemistry, this was really cool!

Sebastian Aguayo (Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile) – gave a talk on tooth decay and the growth of biofilms of bacteria on tooth surfaces known as dentin, which is exposed by receding gums. I was interested to find out more about how the AFM Force Spectroscopy in Sebastian’s lab measures the molecular unbinding events and adhesion of bacteria on oral surfaces such as dentin, to further understand this process and how to combat it. (Ok, so this one is actually biophysics, but it is about teeth so is different to my area of study…)

Image competition

Seeing the images that had been submitted to the image competition as well as the winning entries, was a popular exhibit.

I particularly enjoyed the AFM Runner Up, Lars Mester’s (Attocube, Germany) image created using AFM-IR, combining the spatial resolution of AFM with the chemical information available from spectroscopy…and it created a pretty picture to boot. Equally the AFM winner, Thomas Hackl (TU Wien, Austria), demonstrated that it is possible to write with AFM not just read(/image). Not only it is possible to use AFM to write patterns using charge on poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA), it can then be imaged and admired using electrical AFM modes such as Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM). Impressive science.

Seeing things anew…

Cheeky Selfie (featuring my fancy new glasses that I finally had a chance to wear!)

I also made use of my fancy new glasses – and recognised how time and tide have changed me since I was last at MMC, with young fresh eyes! Even when I last went to any conference in 2018 I could still see from the back of the hall. Not now sadly. Still, at least I look very distinguished in the glasses.

It was an enormously inspiring event – inspiring and tiring in fact! My overriding feeling after leaving was exhaustion, albeit in a good sense. Watching seminars, chatting to exhibitors and especially to the poster presenters equates to a significant amount of concentration and energy expended in talking. Maybe this is why MMC is biannual?! We all need a couple of years to process and mull over everything we’ve seen and heard in such a concentrated amount of time. That said there is a dedicated AFM&SPM conference (UK SPM, Durham 2024), a sort of little sister to MMC to keep us all going before the next big event in 2025 – both of which I’ll be eager to return to - after a little recovery time from this extravaganza of course!

Were you at the 2023 MMC Series? What were your impressions? What talks/posters/images/events stuck out most for you? We’d love to hear community@nunano.com

If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also like How to make the most out of Microscopy Conferences or AFM Conferences: What are the pros and cons to online conferencing?