Model 1070
NanoClean
Cleans specimens and holders immediately before insertion into an electron microscope; removes existing carbonaceous debris from the specimen and prevents contamination during imaging and analysis. Accepts two electron microscopy specimen holders and has multiple gas inlets with mixing capabilities.
Clean, well prepared specimens are an imperative for imaging and microanalysis in electron microscopy. TEM requires that specimens be prepared without altering their microstructure or composition.
Contamination typically comes from several sources: inadvertent touching of specimens or specimen holders, electron microscope column contamination, and adhesives or solvents used in the preparation process.
The NanoClean removes contamination from a wide variety of materials prepared by a variety of techniques. The specimen holder is inserted through a port into the plasma chamber. Ports for a wide variety of microscope manufacturers are available and are easily changed in as little as 10 seconds.
The NanoClean cleans specimens and holders immediately before they are inserted into an electron microscope. A low-energy, inductively coupled, high frequency, downstream plasma effectively cleans the specimen surface without changing its elemental composition or structural characteristics. Highly contaminated specimens can be cleaned in two minutes or less.
The NanoClean readily accepts one or two side-entry specimen holders for most commercial TEMs and STEMs, and can accept bulk specimens for cleaning before conducting SEM or surface science analysis. The Plasma Cleaner includes the customer's choice of specimen holder port, pumping port assembly, and blank plug assembly.
Ports are available for electron microscopes manufactured by:
- Thermo Fisher Scientific/FEI Company/Philips Electron Optics
- Hitachi High Technologies America Inc.
- JEOL Ltd.
- Carl Zeiss Microscopy/LEO Electron Microscopes
Plasma cleaning of carbon films for transmission electron microscopy
Plasma cleaning of a specimen grid and side-entry holder eliminates mobile carbonaceous contaminants that may migrate to the vicinity of the electron beam. These contaminants obscure the area of interest during imaging and subsequent analysis.
Applications of plasma cleaning for electron microscopy of semiconducting materials
As semiconductor device sizes continue to decrease, the degree of accuracy needed for electron microscopy and microanalysis of such materials increases. To achieve such accuracy, small electron probes with high beam currents are needed. The combination of these two factors results in an increase in the amount of...
Controlling protein adsorption on graphene for cryo-EM using low energy hydrogen plasmas
Despite its many favorable properties as a sample support for biological electron microscopy, graphene is not widely used because its hydrophobicity precludes reliable protein deposition. We describe a method to modify graphene with a low-energy hydrogen plasma, which reduces hydrophobicity without degrading the...
Multifunctional graphene supports for electron cryomicroscopy
We present a multifunctional specimen support for cryo EM, comprising large-crystal monolayer graphene suspended across the surface of an ultra-stable gold specimen support. Using a low-energy plasma surface modification system, we tune the surface of this support to the specimen by patterning a range of covalent...
Plasma cleaning and its applications for electron microscopy
The effectiveness of applying a high-frequency, low-energy, reactive gas plasma for the removal of hydrocarbon contamination from specimens and components for electron microscopy has been investigated with a variety of analytical techniques. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of specimens that have been...
Plasma cleaning of carbonaceous samples using a shield
Plasma cleaning is a useful technique to clean transmission electron microscopy sample surfaces from carbon hydroxide. However, selective material removal rates can be hard to establish. As a result, carbonaceous samples are significantly impacted by the plasma process since by the very nature of an oxygen plasma...