Membrane-Based Environmental Cells for SEM in Liquids

Dynamic Imaging of Nanostructures in an Electrolyte with a Scanning Electron Microscope

“…The common approaches for capturing the objects in a liquid with SEM include cooling the stage to temperatures where water condenses (Rykaczewski et al, 2011;Xiao et al, 2018), encapsulation with a thin membrane layer such as graphene or with sealed capsules (also known as WET-SEM; Kolmakov, 2016). However, these approaches involving condensed liquids and sealed capsules are less suitable for studying dynamic chemical and electrochemical processes because they either do not allow control over the chemical environment or lack important features required in electrochemistry such as continuous fluid flow and electrodes to apply an external bias voltage or to be used as a reference.…”

“…However, these approaches involving condensed liquids and sealed capsules are less suitable for studying dynamic chemical and electrochemical processes because they either do not allow control over the chemical environment or lack important features required in electrochemistry such as continuous fluid flow and electrodes to apply an external bias voltage or to be used as a reference. While there are home-made LC-SEM systems that also incorporate flow (Yang et al, 2013;Kolmakov, 2016;Yu et al, 2019) or allow electrochemical measurements (Jensen et al, 2013;Jensen et al, 2014;Kolmakov, 2016;Velasco-Velez et al, 2020), these systems commonly utilize a single membrane window with a relatively large liquid reservoir underneath, which affects the final resolution due to the extended interaction volume of the primary electrons. The LC geometry used in TEM holders with a pair of top and bottom silicon nitride membranes has, to the best of our knowledge, not yet been reported.…”

Study of Nanoparticle Size Limitation in Aqueous Environment by SEM

“…All electron microscopes should be operated in vacuum (10 -4 Torr to 10 -7 Torr) to minimize the electron source scattered other than from the sample. Complementing conventional high vacuum SEM or TEM, a membrane based liquid device that could isolate the liquid from the liquid environment is developed [9]. Over the past decade, the thin-membrane technology has developed.…”

Electron and X-ray Focused Beam-Induced Cross-Linking in Liquids: Toward Rapid Continuous 3D Nanoprinting and Interfacing using Soft Materials

“…However, the chemical composition of the structures in both approaches remains to be restricted by the number of available precursors or nonvolatile liquid formulations and still suffers from co-reactants impurities. FEBID from the liquid phase solutions using through-the-membrane [19][20][21][22][23] (also called liquid cell scanning electron microscopy (LSEM) 24,25 ) approach in principle can offer greater materials selection, faster deposition rates and high purity of deposits and potentially be used for high resolution additive manufacturing. 26 Similarly, a significant progress has been made in Deep X-ray lithography, 27,28 direct writing with zone plate focused X-ray beams for precise 29 and chemically selective 30 fabrication of high aspect ratio microstructures.…”

“…However, the chemical composition of the structures in both approaches remains to be restricted by the number of available precursors or nonvolatile liquid formulations and still suffers from co-reactants impurities. FEBID from the liquid-phase solutions using a through-the-membrane − (also called liquid cell scanning electron microscopy (LSEM) , ) approach in principle can offer greater materials selection, faster deposition rates, and a high purity of deposits and potentially could be used for high-resolution additive manufacturing …”