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Graphene-enhanced 3D chemical mapping of biological specimens at near-atomic resolution

journal contribution
posted on 2018-08-08, 00:00 authored by V R Adineh, C Zheng, Q Zhang, Ross MarceauRoss Marceau, B Liu, Y Chen, K J Si, M Weyland, T Velkov, W Cheng, J Li, J Fu
© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim The direct imaging of individual atoms within the cellular context holds great potential for understanding the fundamental physical and chemical processes in organisms. Here, a novel approach for imaging of electrically insulated biological cells by introducing a graphene encapsulation approach to “disguise” the low-conductivity barrier is reported. Upon successful coating using a water-membrane-based protocol, the electrical properties of the graphene enable voltage pulsing field evaporation for atom probe tomography (APT). Low conductive specimens prepared from both Au nanoparticles and antibiotic-resistant bacterial cells have been tested. For the first time, a significant graphene-enhanced APT mass resolving power is also observed confirming the improved compositional accuracy of the 3D data. The introduction of 2D materials encapsulation lays the foundation for a breakthrough direction in specimen preparation from nanomembrane and nanoscale biological architectures for subsequent 3D near-atomic characterization.

History

Journal

Advanced functional materials

Volume

28

Issue

32

Article number

1801439

Publisher

Wiley

Location

Chichester, Eng.

ISSN

1616-301X

eISSN

1616-3028

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2018, WILEY-VCH Verlag