SPECTROSCOPY
Figure 2: Bex image of Lichen sample with pollution particles. BEX image acquired with Unity Cartography mode during the remote demo. Areas that are several millimetres across can be acquired within minutes and used to navigate the complex samples and select regions of interest.
VOLUME ELECTRON MICROSCOPY (VEM): HOW BEX IMAGING CAN ACCELERATE VEM IMAGING The Volume EM Technology Forum is a great opportunity for researchers and scientists to learn about the latest advances in volume electron microscopy (vEM). This year, the conference featured presentations from leading experts in the field, as well as technical presentations, posters, panel discussions, and hardware and software demos. Attendees also had the opportunity to network with other researchers and scientists, and to learn about new products and services from exhibitors. In this year’s event (21st October 2024 – 24th October 2024), the Oxford Instruments team presented a demo of our BEX detector, Unity, where we connected remotely to the Oxford Instruments Innovation Centre, a state-of-the-art facility at the High Wycombe site. We showcased the advantages of BEX imaging for biological and non- biological samples, especially for vEM applications, where the speed and flexibility of BEX for different specimens is key (Figure 1). With Unity Cartography mode,
Oxford Instruments achieved high- resolution chemical mapping of entire
biological samples. This workflow would previously have taken several hours to complete (even overnight) and can now be achieved within minutes with BEX imaging, enabling higher throughput and less beam damage for sensitive samples such as cells and tissues (Figure 2).
BEX CARTOGRAPHY OF CELLS AND TISSUES With BEX, new possibilities for vEM are open, for collecting elemental and ultrastructural information simultaneously, without added imaging time. In the example in Figure 3, BEX cartography was used to achieve high resolution images and fast mapping of array tomography brain slices. Large areas were imaged with a relatively short beam dwell time (10µs), which reduces beam damage, drift and resin charging. Elemental information was acquired simultaneously and provided chemical differentiation that can be used to further distinguish between sample features, opening the possibility of improving subsequent segmentation of data. BEX also provided information about strain distribution, which was quantified by the EDS detector. Being able to measure the amount of stain taken up by the sample improves the team’s ability to make direct comparisons between samples enabling them to optimise sample preparation techniques.
For more information visit:
http://nano.oxinst.com
Figure 3: Proposed workflow for array tomography using BEX. This demonstrates fast acquisition of elemental composition and ultrastructural images at high resolution for vEM reconstruction of brain slices
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