Pure silicon TEM windows feature imaging windows with 5 to 35 nm thickness, reducing background contribution and interference for higher contrast imaging. Most impressively, 5 nm thick non-porous pure silicon TEM Windows are thinner than the thinnest commercially available amorphous carbon membranes.
- Plasma cleanable - can be vigorously plasma cleaned to remove organic contamination, unlike traditional carbon grids
- Silicon composition - Sputter-deposited, pure, intrinsic silicon
- Minimal background signal - Enables elemental analyses of samples containing nitrogen and/or carbon
- Hydrophilicity - The hydrophilicity of both non-porous and porous Pure Silicon TEM Windows is tunable by plasma and/or ozone treatment making sample preparation easier, particularly for samples in aqueous solutions
- Increased stability - At high beam currents and high annealing temperatures (600 °C for non-porous, >1000 °C for nanoporous)
Field to field uniformity - Non-porous pure silicon TEM Windows are more consistently thin than carbon grids, reducing field-to-field variability. (Note: Porous windows do have inherent crystalline features, but feature background-free nanometer-scale pores).
Reduced chromatic blur - In comparison to the thinnest commercially available amorphous carbon membranes, 5 nm Non-porous pure silicon TEM Windows yield half the chromatic blur. This dramatic difference results from a two-fold reduction in inelastic scattering of electrons passing through the thinner membranes of silicon TEM Windows. In turn, the reduced chromatic blur offers a potential two-fold improvement in imaging resolution.
Nanometer-scale pores - Pure Silicon TEM Windows are available as porous films with pores ranging from 5 to 50 nm in diameter. The pores allow simple and stable suspension of nanoscale materials for imaging without intervening background.
Isolated poly-crystallinity - The poly-crystalline nature of porous pure silicon TEM windows offers an internal calibration standard for x-ray diffraction studies. The isolated crystalline features also provides a convenient and reliable scale for high-resolution size measurements, well-characterized crystal lattice of silicon.
Nanoporous - Using P30 membranes has made the nanoporous TEM windows significantly more porous. Pore sizes have increased to include a range of pores from 10 to 60 nm in diameter. Non-porous films are lightly wrinkled with approximately 5 µm or less deflection across 100 µm of travel. This is typically not problematic for high-resolution imaging.
