New frontiers in atom probe tomography: a review of research enabled by cryo and/or vacuum transfer systems

Abstract

There has been a recent surge in the use of cryo and/or vacuum specimen preparation and transfer systems to broaden the scope of research enabled by the microscopy technique of atom probe tomography. This is driven by the fact that, as for many microscopes, the application of atom probes to air- and temperature-sensitive materials or wet biological specimens has previously been limited by transfer through air at room temperature. Here we provide an overview of areas of research that benefit from these new transfer and analysis protocols, as well as a review of current advances in transfer devices, environmental cells, and glove boxes for controlled specimen manipulation. This includes the study of catalysis and corrosion, biological samples, liquid-solid interfaces, natural aging, and the distribution of hydrogen in materials.

Correlative Approach for Atom Probe Sample Preparation of Interfaces Using Plasma Focused Ion Beam Without Lift-Out

“…Some degree of contamination during sample preparation may also contribute to the high concentration of H identified. In order to avoid H contamination during sample preparation, cryogenic and vacuum preparation and transfer methods may be necessary (McCarroll et al, 2020).…”

A Critical Review of the Use of Surfactant-Coated Nanoparticles in Nanomedicine and Food Nanotechnology

“…219 In recent years, a field of nanomedicine called "nanotheranostics" has been developed for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases at the same time, and the development of bio-imaging probes is under intense investigation in this field. [220][221][222] The fluorescence imaging technology using quantum dots, which enables to visualize the behavior of individual cells in vivo and to treat them at the same time, has been attracting attention (Figure 2B). 223 Quantum dots, which are colloids of semiconducting nanoparticles approximately 2-50 nm in size, have fluorescent properties compared to fluorophores: negligible fluorescence photobleaching in response to the excitation light, a broader excitation spectrum, and a sharper emission peak.…”

Status and Direction of Atom Probe Analysis of Frozen Liquids

“…There have been efforts to perform electrochemical polishing at temperatures in the range of −30°C (Lefebvre et al, 2002;Dumitraschkewitz et al, 2019). Ongoing worldwide efforts aimed at pushing the development of "cryo-APT" for specimen preparation and specimen transfer (Perea et al, 2017;Stephenson et al, 2018;McCarroll et al, 2020) might help taking a step forward in the feasibility of APT analysis of layers of liquids or liquids embedded into a hard structure-see for instance the recent reports of APT analysis of n hydrated glass by Schreiber et al (2018) and Perea et al (2020)-and the associated solid-liquid interface. Efforts involving graphene encapsulation akin to a liquid cell for TEM have been reported by the group at Monash-Deakin (Qiu et al, 2020a(Qiu et al, , 2020b.…”