A novel method of Z-contrast imaging in STEM applied to double-labelling

Flexible STEM with Simultaneous Phase and Depth Contrast

Recent advances in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) have rekindled interest in multi-channel detectors and prompted the exploration of unconventional scan patterns. These emerging needs are not yet addressed by standard commercial hardware. The system described here incorporates a flexible scan generator that enables exploration of low-acceleration scan patterns, while data are recorded by a scalable eight-channel array of nonmultiplexed analog-to-digital converters. System integration with SerialEM provides a flexible route for automated acquisition protocols including tomography. Using a solid-state quadrant detector with additional annular rings, we explore the generation and detection of various STEM contrast modes. Through-focus bright-field scans relate to phase contrast, similarly to wide-field TEM. More strikingly, comparing images acquired from different off-axis detector elements reveals lateral shifts dependent on defocus. Compensation of this parallax effect leads to decomposition of integrated differential phase contrast (iDPC) to separable contributions relating to projected electric potential and to defocus. Thus, a single scan provides both a computationally refocused phase contrast image and a second image in which the signed intensity, bright or dark, represents the degree of defocus.

Improved immuno double labelling for cell and structural biology

Colloidal gold is the most widely used electron dense marker in biological electron microscopy. The development of procedures for making gold particles of very defined sizes has made double or even multiple labelling possible using gold of two or more different sizes. Lately a new type of electron dense marker has been developed consisting of ligand-stabilized metal atom clusters rather than colloidal particles. The differences between these two types of markers are highlighted and the advantages of using metal atom clusters for immuno labelling of certain biological specimens are discussed. Possible methods of distinguishing two such cluster labels in double labelling experiments are reviewed.