Current interest in high voltage electron microscopy, especially in the scanning mode, has prompted the development of a method for determining the contrast and resolution of images of specimens in controlled-atmosphere stages or open to the air, hydrated biological specimens being a good example. Such a method would be of use in the prediction of microscope performance and in the subsequent optimization of environmental cell design for given circumstances of accelerating voltage, cell gas pressure and constitution, and desired resolution.Fig. 1 depicts the alfresco cell of a focussed scanning transmission microscope with a layer of gas L (and possibly a thin window W) between the objective O and specimen T. Using the principle of reciprocity, it may be considered optically equivalent to a conventional transmission electron microscope, if the beams were reversed. The layer of gas or solid material after the specimen in the STEM or before the specimen in TEM has no great effect on resolution or contrast and so is ignored here.
