New microscopy method for quick and reliable 3-D imaging of curvilinear nanostructures

said braka 6:08 AM
The labs of Cécile Hébert and Pascal Fua at EPFL have

developed an electron microscopy method that can obtain 3D images of complex curvilinear structures without needing to tilt the sample. The technique, developed by EPFL researcher Emad Oveisi, relies on a variation of TEM called scanning TEM (STEM), where a focused beam of electrons scans across the sample.
The novelty of the method is that it can acquire images in a single shot, which opens the way to study samples dynamically as they change over time. Furthermore, it can rapidly provide a "sense" of three dimensions, just like we would have with a 3D cinema.
"Our own eyes can see 3D representations of an object by combining two different perspectives of it, but the brain still has to complement the visual information with its previous knowledge of the shape of certain objects," says Hébert. "But in some cases with TEM we know something about what shape the sample's structure must have. For example, it can be curvilinear, like DNA or the mysterious defects that we call 'dislocations', which govern the optoelectronic or mechanical properties of materials."


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-09-microscopy-method-quick-reliable-d.html#jCp