In This Issue
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Collecting
Tomographic Tilt Series in STEM
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Enhanced phase identification with simultaneous STEM
EDS and EELS/ELNES
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How to prepare high water
content bulk biological and botanical specimens for
Cryo-SEM and not get ice crystals
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Digital
v.s. Film Costs in Electron Microscopy
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Visit
us at M&M 2007 |
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We hope you are enjoying your summer.
As we all know, summer means the
Microscopy & Microanalysis Meeting. As every
year, Gatan will be a major exhibitor at M&M.
Gatan is in booth 1906. Besides our massive 50 foot
booth, we will bring an international contingent
of our top scientists, product specialists, and
sales managers. This is an ideal opportunity for
you to meet and query us on your EM application
needs and our products and services.
We will be showcasing our latest
line of products. They include a complete suite
of 3D tomography software, newly improved specimen
preparation instrument, CCD cameras, and also a
new x-ray microscopy product. We will also have
live CCD camera demonstrations on a TEM and live
demonstrations of our Cathodoluminescence (CL) system
and high resolution x-ray microscope both on a SEM.
Again, this is a great opportunity to see how Gatan
can help you improve your EM work.
We are very excited about offering
M&M registrants a complete curriculum of tutorials–a
total of five. Our product specialists will present
registrants with detailed information on new products
and applications. Our five tutorials are:
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Computer Controlled
Polishing System for Automated Sample Preparation
Monday, August 6, 2007; 5:30 – 7:00 pm.
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3View: Serial
Block Face Imaging in the SEM
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; 5:30 – 7:00 pm.
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PIPS Low Energy
and Cold Stage Milling
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; 5:30 – 7:00 pm.
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Re-evaluating
Biological Microscopy Techniques for Digital Imaging
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; 5:30 – 7:00 pm.
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XuM: X-ray
Microscopy in the SEM
Tuesday, August 7, 2007; 5:30 – 7:00 pm
Wednesday, August 8, 2007, 5:30 – 7:00pm.
All of the tutorials are held in
Gatan booth 1906. Please register for our tutorials
at the MSA Mega Booth.
So come by and visit us. We would
enjoy talking with you about your work and your
needs. We will see you in Ft. Lauderdale!
Ming Pan, PhD
Director of Marketing
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Collecting
Tomographic Tilt Series in STEM
By Chris Booth and Robin
Harmon, Gatan Software, Pleasanton, CA
Combining Scanning Transmission
Electron Microscopy (STEM) with Tomography provides
a unique opportunity and leverage the strengths
of both techniques to address questions at the
leading edge of science. STEM Tomography enables
researchers to use directly interpretable Z-contrast
imaging while trying to understand complex 3D
specimens. |
| With all the
advantages that the two techniques provide,
there are still some significant challenges
that need to be overcome to make this technique
routine for data acquisition. Fortunately there
are now many tools to help overcome the problems
associated with the collection of STEM Tomography
Data. These include holders that help to minimize
the missing wedge problem, STEM detectors that
utilize collect bright field, dark field and
high angular dark field signals and software
that robustly automates much of the data collection
process.... Click here
to read on. |
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Enhanced phase identification with simultaneous
STEM EDS and EELS/ELNES
By Mike Kundmann
In problems involving
real-world materials, the key to a solution
often lies in using multiple complementary (and/or
redundant) sources of information to discern
and identify the various phases that might form
during material production and processing. |
| Of particular
interest in this respect are unexpected and possibly
undesired reaction products that can develop at
interfaces between different components of an
engineered structure. In such cases, it can be
quite beneficial to simultaneously monitor both
elemental composition (EDS fluorescence peaks
and EELS core-edge signals) and electronic structure
(energy-loss near edge structure or ELNES) signals
to form a more complete picture of the interfacial
phases present..... Click
here
to read on. |
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How
to prepare high water content bulk biological
and botanical specimens for Cryo-SEM and not
get ice crystals
By Marilyn
Carey, Cryo-SEM Product Specialist, Gatan UK
One of the problems encountered
with cryogenic electron microscopy is the formation
of ice crystals when hydrated specimens are
quench cooled. These crystals can be big; especially
when the sample is large e.g. 0.5mm in size
and the sample contains mostly water, as found
in biological tissue. |
| The ice crystals
that form damage the internal microstructure of
cells. Cytoplasm in particular demonstrates this
effect well; large ice crystals with eutectic
boundaries are well recognised features in cells
of tissue that has been quench cooled prior to
observation in the cryo-scanning electron microscope,
as seen in figure 1.
... Click here
to read on.
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Digital
v.s. Film Costs in Electron Microscopy
By
Bill Mollon, Digital Imaging Product Manager,
Gatan, Pleasanton, CA
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| Anyone who
has been working in the field of Transmission
Electron Microscopy (TEM) will tell you how important
the art and discipline of photography is in their
research. As we all know the scientific method
hopefully will give you the needed data you’ve
been hoping for but the presentation of that data
can be just as important. Photography is a complex
study and every good microscopist has spent his
or her own multitude of time carefully composing
and producing quality output from their data.
For electron microscopists who use TEM, it has
been the understanding and knowledge of photography
that helps us in making the right film choice,
development techniques, chemical selection, darkroom
processing, enlarging and printing techniques
that take our data and put it in a form that helps
tell the story. A lot of work in the “dark”
and dealing with nasty chemicals are all part
of the game for all of us who have taken this
form of microscopy as a career
... Click here
to read on. |
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We
hope that you will find this news letter both interesting
and useful. If you do not, simply click here to be unsubscribed
and removed from our list.
Gatan
Inc. Corporate Headquarters, 5933 Coronado Lane, Pleasanton,
CA 94588
Tel. (925) 463 0200 Fax. (925) 463 0204
Contact: info @gatan.com |
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