Digital Cryogenic Transmission Electron Microscopy:
The State-of-the-Science
Y. Talmon, Dept. of Chemical Engng., Technion-Israel Inst. of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel
Digital imaging cryo-TEM has become an important extension of transmission electron
microscopy at cryogenic temperatures of soft matter. In this presentation I describe the
advantages of the technique and demonstrate its use in the study of micellar systems. We
have shown how details that had been impossible or difficult to image, can be easily
observed by this novel technique. For example, micelles were in past imaged as dots or
one-dimensional lines. Now we can show fluctuations in width, inner structure of
branching zones, and end-caps of threadlike micelles. It is emphasized that the
introduction of digital imaging to cryo-TEM is not merely a small technical
improvement, but does promise to expand the capabilities of TEM of complex fluids in a
most significant way.