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Microscop at Advanced Electron Microscopy Facility

Advanced Electron Microscopy Facility

    Advanced Electron Microscopy Core Facility
    Gordon Center for Integrated Science
    929 E. 57th St.
    Rooms: ESB07, ESB23 (Scope room)
    Chicago, IL 60637

    Surgery Brain
    Abbott Memorial Hall
    5812 S. Ellis Ave.
    Room: SB019
    Chicago, IL 60637

    Technical contacts:
    Jotham (Joe) Austin
    773-702-9091
    jotham@uchicago.edu

    Tera Lavoie, PhD
    Technical Director
    773-834-5373
    tlavoie@bsd.uchicago.edu

    A primary mission of the Advanced Electron Microscopy Facility is to develop techniques for preserving cellular structure with the highest degree of reliability. These techniques involve different methods for rapidly freezing our samples in order to halt structural and biochemical activity in a very short timeframe, thus preserving structure in the "live" state. Once the sample is preserved in the "live" state, it is then possible to study the ultrastructure of these samples using not only basic Electron Microscopy imaging techniques, but also state-of the-art techniques such as: 1) 3-D electron tomography, and 2) immuno-cytochemistry.

    Baltec HPM01 High Pressure Freezing Machine

    FEI Tecnai G2 F30 Super Twin microscope

    The FEI Tecnai F30 is a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) that forms the centerpiece of the Electron Microscopy Core Facility. The microscope can be operated at the maximum accelerating voltage of 300 kV and is capable of atomic resolution imaging in both TEM and STEM modes. The microscope uses a Schottky field emission gun as its electron source, providing the highest current density and the smallest electron probe-size, which are critical for high spatial-resolution analysis using the scanning mode.The microscope is currently equipped with a high performance CCD camera with 4k x 4k resolution for image recording, an X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer (EDX) for compositional analysis, and STEM detectors for bright-field, annular dark-field, and high-angle annual dark-field (Z-contrast) imaging.

    High brightness Schottky emitter operated at 300 kV
    digital CCD camera with 4k x 4k image resolution
    high-resolution TEM imaging with the point-to-point resolution of 0.2 nm
    STEM imaging at the spatial resolution of 0.2 nm
    EDX for elemental analysis
    Standard single-tilt and low-background (Be) double-tilt holders
    low dose capability
    tomography capability

    Fischione Dual-Axis Tomography Holder Model 2040

    Leica EM AFS2 Automatic Freeze-Substitution Processor

    Leica UC6 Ultramicrotome with MZ6 Microscope and Accessories

     

    Sample Equipment

    Ultracut E Microtome for sectioning
    Edwards Auto 306 Evaporator for carbon coating and glow discharge

    Software

    Gatan DigitalMicrograph
    Focal-Series High-Resolution Reconstruction Package
    Tomography Acquisition and Reconstruction Package

     

    https://tomocryo.uchicago.edu/