LAUSR

Electron-matter interactions play utmost importance during the examination of soft materials, including polymers, cells, etc. The amounts of electron dose rate, total electron dose and incident voltage have tremendous effects on the formation of radiation byproducts in liquid media. Over the past few years, in situ electron microscopy in liquid environment has experienced a surge of interest. Some of the recent applications have included the imaging of labeled structures within whole cells [3, 4] and solution-phase nanoparticles [5]. Fluid cell holders were introduced to allow live imaging in an electron microscope with a relatively thick Si3N4 window (usually 15 to 50 nm thickness), whereas the more recently introduced GLCTEM only uses monolayers of graphene (0.2 to 1 nm thickness), improving the imaging resolution. Relative resistance of the two in situ techniques toward the radiation byproduct formation is evaluated in this work in terms of both monitoring morphology changes via electron imaging and via Monte Carlo simulation calculations of energy depositions per nm3 voxels during electron imaging [9, 10]. Single scattering method was used with the assumption of the interaction of only the primary electrons with the organic matter [11]. Both computer simulation and electron microscopy experiments on soft materials including ferritins and filomicelles in liquid cell enclosures were carried out to understand the radiation effects of electron exposure.