LOW-VOLTAGE BACKSCATTERED ELECTRON IMAGING OF NON-COATED BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES IN A LOW-VACUUM ENVIRONMENT USING A VARIABLE-PRESSURE SCANNING ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE WITH A YAG-DETECTOR
T. Ushiki et al., LOW-VOLTAGE BACKSCATTERED ELECTRON IMAGING OF NON-COATED BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES IN A LOW-VACUUM ENVIRONMENT USING A VARIABLE-PRESSURE SCANNING ELECTRON-MICROSCOPE WITH A YAG-DETECTOR, Journal of Electron Microscopy, 47(4), 1998, pp. 351-354
A variable-pressure scanning electron microscope (VP-SEM) equipped wit
h a high-sensitive backscattered electron (BSE) detector of the YAG ty
pe was applied to studies of biological tissue samples. The rat kidney
and trachea were fixed, dehydrated in ethanol, critical point-dried a
nd examined in the VP-SEM under a specimen chamber pressure of 1 to 15
0 Pa. The high-resolution surface images of the non-coated specimens w
ere obtained in a low-vacuum (1-20 Pa) environment at an accelerating
voltage of 5 kV, while the images at 10-20 kV contained information be
neath the surface of the specimens. The observation in the VP-SEM equi
pped with YAG detector in a low-vacuum (1-20 Pa) environment at low (3
-5 kV) accelerating voltages is useful for the three-dimensional analy
sis of the surface morphology of biological non-coated samples.