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Chromium Coating for High Resolution SEM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Ya Chen  and
David Wokosin
Ya Chen
Affiliation:
Integrated Microscopy Resource (IMR), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706
David Wokosin
Affiliation:
Integrated Microscopy Resource (IMR), University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706
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Extract

High quality imaging of the macromolecular structure of biological samples can be obtained when combining high resolution SEM with advanced thin metal film coating techniques. A thin layer of fine grain metal film is often necessary to enrich the secondary electron (SE) signal generation and to enhance the contrast of features of interest, because the yield of SE signal from biological samples is low. Secondary electron signals, types SE-I and SE-II, are generated by primary beam at the impact point or by backscattered electrons (BSE) dislocated from the impact point, respectively (Peters, 1982; Joy, 1984). The SE-II signal yield depends on the amount of BSE signal and the collection ratio of SE-I/SE-II components regulates the surface topographic contrast. Therefore, the low atomic number metals with low backscattering coefficients should be considered for high resolution SEM coating. Chromium, which has both the features of low atomic number (Z=24) and sufficient SE signal yield, is an appropriate choice and was first used by Peters (1982) for high resolution SEM imaging.

Type
Low Voltage Sem Imaging and Analysis for the Biological and Materials Sciences
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 3 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '97, Microscopy Society of America 55th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 31st Annual Meeting, Histochemical Society 48th Annual Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, August 10-14, 1997 , August 1997 , pp. 1233 - 1234
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 1997

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References

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6.The authors gratefully thank Johnny Hagen, Technotrade International, Manchester, NH 03103, for his assistance with the sputter header of MEDOIO and loan of the QMG064/QME064 gas spectrometer to the IMR. This work was supported by NIH grant RR00570.Google Scholar