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Title: Relative merits and limiting factors for x-ray and electron microscopy of thick, hydrated organic materials

Journal Article · · Ultramicroscopy
 [1];  [2]
  1. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
  2. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)

Electron and x-ray microscopes allow one to image the entire, unlabeled structure of hydrated materials at a resolution well beyond what visible light microscopes can achieve. However, both approaches involve ionizing radiation, so that radiation damage must be considered as one of the limits to imaging. Drawing upon earlier work, we describe here a unified approach to estimating the image contrast (and thus the required exposure and corresponding radiation dose) in both x-ray and electron microscopy. This approach accounts for factors such as plural and inelastic scattering, and (in electron microscopy) the use of energy filters to obtain so-called "zero loss" images. As expected, it shows that electron microscopy offers lower dose for specimens thinner than about 1 mu m (such as for studies of macromolecules, viruses, bacteria and archaebacteria, and thin sectioned material), while x-ray microscopy offers superior characteristics for imaging thicker specimen such as whole eukaryotic cells, thick-sectioned tissues, and organs. The required radiation dose scales strongly as a function of the desired spatial resolution, allowing one to understand the limits of live and frozen hydrated specimen imaging. Lastly, we consider the factors limiting x-ray microscopy of thicker materials, suggesting that specimens as thick as a whole mouse brain can be imaged with x-ray microscopes without significant image degradation should appropriate image reconstruction methods be identified.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Institutes of Health (NIH); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22), Scientific User Facilities Division; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1411044
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1549479
Journal Information:
Ultramicroscopy, Vol. 184, Issue PA; ISSN 0304-3991
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (9)

Ab initio nonrigid X-ray nanotomography text January 2019
Multimodal x-ray nanotomography journal April 2020
Visualization of protein crystals by high-energy phase-contrast X-ray imaging journal October 2019
Ab initio nonrigid X-ray nanotomography. journalarticle January 2019
Visualization of protein crystals by high-energy phase-contrast X-ray imaging text January 2019
X-ray microscopy journal July 1965
Visualization of protein crystals by high-energy phase-contrast X-ray imaging text January 2019
Correlative 3D x-ray fluorescence and ptychographic tomography of frozen-hydrated green algae journal November 2018
Three dimensions, two microscopes, one code: Automatic differentiation for x-ray nanotomography beyond the depth of focus limit journal March 2020

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