Robust fully controlled nanometer liquid layers for high resolution liquid-cell electron microscopy.

Abstract

Liquid cell electron microscopy (LCEM) has long suffered from irreproducibility and its inability to confer high-quality images over a wide field of view. LCEM demands the encapsulation of the <i>in-liquid</i> sample between two ultrathin membranes (windows). In the vacuum environment of the electron microscope, the windows bulge, drastically reducing the achievable resolution and the usable viewing region. Herein, we introduce a shape-engineered nanofluidic cell architecture and an air-free drop-casting sample loading technique, which combined, provide robust bulgeless imaging conditions. We demonstrate the capabilities of our stationary approach through the study of <i>in-liquid</i> model samples and quantitative measurements of the liquid layer thickness. The presented LCEM method confers high throughput, lattice resolution across the complete viewing window, and sufficient contrast for the observation of <i>unstained</i> liposomes, paving the way to high-resolution movies of biospecimens in their near native environment.