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Capabilities and Limitations of Biological Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

R.D. Leapman  and
S.B. Andrews
R.D. Leapman
Affiliation:
Biomedical Engineering & Instrumentation Program, NCRR; Bethesda, MD, 20892.
S.B. Andrews
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Neurobiology, NINDS, National Institutes of HealthBethesda, MD, 20892.
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Extract

Perhaps the ultimate aim of analytical electron microscopy in biology is to detect single atoms or ions bound to isolated macromolecular assemblies and small cellular organelles rapidly frozen in their native state. Although the meaningful spatial resolution in such analyses is limited to ∽10 nm or more by radiation damage, the high intrinsic sensitivity of electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) coupled with recent developments seems to make this rather ambitious goal—originally proposed some twenty years ago—within reach. Here we describe examples where EELS has been able to detect surprisingly small numbers of atoms in biological specimens and discuss some fundamental limits that are encountered as well as some possible strategies for circumventing these difficulties.

In our laboratory we have used a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) equipped with a field-emission source and parallel-detection EELS because the probe size and collection efficiency of this instrument are optimized to give the lowest detectable number of atoms and lowest detectable atomic fraction.

Type
Microscopy and Microanalysis: “Showstoppers” in Critical Applications Areas
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. 871 - 872
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 1997

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