Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
ACS Nano. 2020 Aug 25;14(8):9637-9643. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.0c00431. Epub 2020 Aug 5.
We introduce a graphene-based nanofluidic cell that facilitates imaging of liquid samples via transmission electron microscopy. The cell combines the benefits of graphene liquid cells-namely, high resolution, reduced charging effects, and excellent sample stability-with the ability to introduce reactants and control fluid concentrations as provided by conventional silicon-nitride-windowed flow cells. The graphene flow cell offers significantly less window bowing compared to existing commercial holders. We demonstrate the performance of the flow cell by imaging gold nanoparticle dynamics and uranyl acetate crystallization. Our results confirm the utility of graphene flow cells in obtaining the high spatial and temporal resolution required for probing the complex dynamics of nanoparticles and nucleation pathways in aqueous solutions.
我们介绍了一种基于石墨烯的纳米流控池，通过透射电子显微镜（TEM）实现对液体样品的成像。该流控池结合了石墨烯液体池的优势，即高分辨率、减少充电效应和优异的样品稳定性，以及传统的氮化硅窗流式细胞仪提供的引入反应物和控制流体浓度的能力。与现有的商业Holder 相比，石墨烯流控池的窗口弯曲程度显著降低。我们通过成像金纳米颗粒动力学和乙酸双氧铀结晶来演示流控池的性能。我们的结果证实了石墨烯流控池在获得高时空分辨率方面的实用性，这对于探测纳米颗粒的复杂动力学和水溶液中的成核途径是必需的。
