Application of Imaging Plate to High-Voltage Electron Microscopy

Abstract

On the observation of structures by high resolution electron microscopy, recording materials with high sensitivity and high quality is awaited, especially for the study of radiation sensitive specimens. Such recording material should be easily combined with the minimum dose system and cryoprotection method. Recently a new recording material, imaging plate, comes to be widely used in X-ray radiography and also in electron microscopy, because of its high sensitivity, high quality and the easiness in handling the images with a computer. The properties of the imaging plate in 100 to 400 kV electron microscopes were already discussed and the effectiveness was revealed.It is demanded to study the applicability of the imaging plate to high voltage electron microscopy. The quality of the imaging plate was investigated using an imaging plate system (JEOL EM-HSR100) equipped in a new Kyoto 1000kV electron microscope. In the system both the imaging plate and films can be introduced together into the camera chamber. Figure 1 shows the effect of accelerating voltage on read-out signal intensities from the imaging plate. The characteristic of commercially available imaging plates is unfortunately optimized for 100 to 200 keV electrons and then for 600 to 1000 keV electrons the signal is reduced. In the electron dose range of 10−13 to 10−10 C/cm2, the signal increases linearly with logarithm of electron dose in all acceralating volatges.