Imaging and Analysis Centre, Natural History Museum

The Imaging and Analysis Centre is one of the Museum's scientific laboratories. We wanted to share some of the amazing things we get up to. If you have any questions or want to see more, let us know.
The Imaging and Analysis Centre has its roots in the Chemical Analytical Laboratories which were established in the Mineralogy Department in the early part of the 19th Century when the Natural History Museum was still known as “The British Museum (Natural History)”. The X-ray diffraction labs were founded in the mid 1930s and electron microprobe analysis and electron microscopy facilities were added in the late 1960s. In 1997, the EM labs (Electron Microscope Unit and Electron Microprobes), sample preparation labs, electronics workshops and the chemical analytical laboratories were moved to new purpose-built laboratories in the basement of the former Geological Museum (we’re directly below the giant globe in the Natural History Museum’s Earth Galleries - the Red zone). Since then, we’ve been developing and improving the facilities; adding confocal microscopy in 1998 and a dedicated micro-CT facility in 2008. In 2012, when the Museum’s facilities were brought under one management structure, we added microscopy facilities from Life Sciences (The Sackler Biodiversity Imaging Laboratory) which acts as a focal point for high quality light microscopy and digital imaging and the Earth Science’s Imaging Suite which concentrates on surface imaging techniques using laser scanning or infinite focus microscopy to capture high resolution 3D surface data from samples. The end result is a uniquely coherent and complementary set of facilities which covers all aspects of sample preparation, imaging and analysis for the Museum’s staff, visiting researchers and the wider scientific community.
Mission: We specialise in the analysis of rocks, minerals and biological natural history specimens and carry out methodological and instrument developmental research to improve our understanding of non-destructive techniques.
We are part of the Museum’s Science Facilities Group and include mineral and rock sample preparation laboratories, wet chemistry labs, instrument-based inorganic chemical analysis, X-ray diffraction, electron beam micro-analysis, high-resolution light and confocal microscopy, surface imaging, laser scanning and metrology, digital image capture, cabinet-based and EM-hosted micro-Computed Tomography, FTIR, transmission and scanning electron microscopy.
Operating as usual