Focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy in biology - PubMed

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• PMID: 24707797
• DOI: 10.1111/jmi.12127

Review

Focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy in biology

C Kizilyaprak et al. J Microsc. 2014 Jun.

Abstract

Since the end of the last millennium, the focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) has progressively found use in biological research. This instrument is a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with an attached gallium ion column and the 2 beams, electrons and ions (FIB) are focused on one coincident point. The main application is the acquisition of three-dimensional data, FIB-SEM tomography. With the ion beam, some nanometres of the surface are removed and the remaining block-face is imaged with the electron beam in a repetitive manner. The instrument can also be used to cut open biological structures to get access to internal structures or to prepare thin lamella for imaging by (cryo-) transmission electron microscopy. Here, we will present an overview of the development of FIB-SEM and discuss a few points about sample preparation and imaging.

Keywords: Electron tomography; FIB-SEM tomography; focused ion beam scanning electron microscope.

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