Addressable graphene encapsulation of wet specimens on a chip for optical, electron, infrared and X-ray based spectromicroscopy studies

Abstract

Label-free spectromicroscopy methods offer the capability to examine complex cellular phenomena. Electron and X-ray-based spectromicroscopy methods, though powerful, have been hard to implement with hydrated objects due to the vacuum...

Soft X-ray Fluorescence and Near-Edge Absorption Microscopy for Investigating Metabolic Features in Biological Systems: A Review

“…As for other analytical methods, the accessible chemical elements are intrinsically limited as they are determined by the specific energy range. Moreover, in the soft X-ray regime, restrictions do exist in terms of sample size, sample thickness and acquisition time, even if there is a global trend to overcome these limitations both improving the experimental environment [ 51 , 53 ], the light sources [ 68 ] and the detectors [ 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 ], and employing some expedients to reduce the sampling frequency or to automatize the acquisition process [ 75 , 76 ].…”

“…A XANES spectrum can then be extracted from a specific point or area of the image. Similarly, C. Arble and coauthors [ 53 ] have developed and tested a graphene encapsulation liquid cell (GrELCs) designed to be suitable for in situ studies of biological samples with an array of analytical techniques such as optical/fluorescence/infrared as well as scanning electron microscopy and X-ray microscopy. The performances and robustness of the cell were evaluated by Fourier-transform infrared spectromicroscopy and by STXM coupled with LEXRF, demonstrating that GrELCs are able to contain very thin water layers for several hours even in high vacuum environments, with the water layer standing above the cells, thanks to the conformability of the graphene layers.…”

Photothermal Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Nanomechanical Resonators

“…Fascinatingly, Arble et. al have demonstrated encapsulation of hydrated samples, even living cells, by graphene on 50-nm-thick SiN windows while in vacuum . Although it is uncertain how such windows would perform at resonance, successful implementation of this approach would have profound implications for photothermal spectroscopy by nanomechanical resonators.…”

“…( * ) Suspended michrochannel resonators (SMRs) rely upon the same state-of-the-art fabrication technologies as nanoresonators. ( †) Encapsulation of hydrated samples with graphene in vacuum conditions on 50-nm-thick SiN has been demonstrated yet remains untested in nanomechanics 70.…”

Elettra-Sincrotrone Trieste: present and future

“…For operando experiments, appropriate sample environments have been developed [ 15 – 22 ], the ESCAmicroscopy operando set-up featuring on the 2015 ChemCatChem cover [ 20 ]. Graphene-sealed cells were demonstrated first at Elettra in the framework of a collaboration with NIST (USA) and TUM (Germany) [ 21 ], and more recent advances led to fabrication of graphene encapsulated liquid cells for in situ studies of hydrated samples using multiple techniques [ 22 ].…”