The Morphology and Crystallography of Diesel Particulate Emissions

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100097399 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

pp. 148-149

Author(s):

R. Stevenson

Keyword(s):

Diffraction Pattern ◽

Carbon Films ◽

Particulate Emissions ◽

Diesel Particulate ◽

Amorphous Carbon Films ◽

Turbostratic Carbon ◽

Diesel Particles ◽

Tem Mode ◽

Exhaust Stream ◽

Diffraction Patterns

A study has been made of the morphology and crystallography of particulate emissions from indirect injection diesel engines. This particulate matter consists substantially of carbon (although hydrocarbons can be extracted with solvents). Samples were collected in a diluted exhaust stream on amorphous carbon films and examined in a JEM-200C electron microscope operated in the TEM mode with an accelerating voltage of 200 KV.The morphology of the diesel particles, as shown in Fig. 1, markedly resembles carbon blacks and consists of an agglomeration of quasispherical subunits arranged in chains or clusters. Only limited changes in morphology were observed as the number of subunits in the particle increased (although larger particles tended to be more cluster-like than the extended chain shown in Fig. 1). However, a dramatic effect of the number of subunits was observed on the character of the diffraction pattern. Smaller particles yielded a diffraction pattern consisting of very diffuse rings typical of turbostratic carbon; the diffraction patterns from the larger particles, however, although qualitatively similar, exhibited much sharper and less diffuse ring patterns.

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Light Optical Diffraction Studies of Macromolecular Ultrastructure

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s042482010006828x ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 258-259

Author(s):

Glen B. Haydon

Keyword(s):

High Resolution ◽

Diffraction Analysis ◽

Diffraction Pattern ◽

Electron Micrographs ◽

Optical Diffraction ◽

Electron Micrograph ◽

Its Analysis ◽

Resolution Electron ◽

Diffraction Patterns

Analysis of light optical diffraction patterns produced by electron micrographs can easily lead to much nonsense. Such diffraction patterns are referred to as optical transforms and are compared with transforms produced by a variety of mathematical manipulations. In the use of light optical diffraction patterns to study periodicities in macromolecular ultrastructures, a number of potential pitfalls have been rediscovered. The limitations apply to the formation of the electron micrograph as well as its analysis.(1) The high resolution electron micrograph is itself a complex diffraction pattern resulting from the specimen, its stain, and its supporting substrate. Cowley and Moodie (Proc. Phys. Soc. B, LXX 497, 1957) demonstrated changing image patterns with changes in focus. Similar defocus images have been subjected to further light optical diffraction analysis.

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Interpretation of irradiation-induced changes in electron diffractograms and images of extinction contours at low temperatures

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100111458 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

pp. 268-269

Author(s):

E. Knapek ◽

H. Formanek ◽

G. Lefranc ◽

I. Dietrich

Keyword(s):

Low Temperatures ◽

Carbon Films ◽

Organic Crystals ◽

Wide Spread ◽

Lens System ◽

Preparation Conditions ◽

Thin Carbon ◽

Electron Diffractograms ◽

Diffraction Patterns ◽

Induced Changes

A few years ago results on cryoprotection of L-valine were reported, where the values of the critical fluence De i.e, the electron exposure which decreases the intensity of the diffraction reflections by a factor e, amounted to the order of 2000 + 1000 e/nm2. In the meantime a discrepancy arose, since several groups published De values between 100 e/nm2 and 1200 e/nm2 /1 - 4/. This disagreement and particularly the wide spread of the results induced us to investigate more thoroughly the behaviour of organic crystals at very low temperatures during electron irradiation.For this purpose large L-valine crystals with homogenuous thickness were deposited on holey carbon films, thin carbon films or Au-coated holey carbon films. These specimens were cooled down to nearly liquid helium temperature in an electron microscope with a superconducting lens system and irradiated with 200 keU-electrons. The progress of radiation damage under different preparation conditions has been observed with series of electron diffraction patterns and direct images of extinction contours.

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Cryomicroscopy of crotoxin complex crystals at 400 KV

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100156109 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 47 ◽

pp. 826-827

Author(s):

Jaap Brink ◽

Wah Chiu

Keyword(s):

Signal To Noise Ratio ◽

3D Structure ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Carbon Films ◽

Depth Of Field ◽

Basic Subunit ◽

Ewald Sphere ◽

Diffraction Patterns ◽

Complex Crystals ◽

Acidic Subunit

The crotoxin complex is a potent neurotoxin composed of a basic subunit (Mr = 12,000) and an acidic subunit (M = 10,000). The basic subunit possesses phospholipase activity whereas the acidic subunit shows no enzymatic activity at all. The complex's toxocity is expressed both pre- and post-synaptically. The crotoxin complex forms thin crystals suitable for electron crystallography. The crystals diffract up to 0.16 nm in the microscope, whereas images show reflections out to 0.39 nm2. Ultimate goal in this study is to obtain a three-dimensional (3D-) structure map of the protein around 0.3 nm resolution. Use of 100 keV electrons in this is limited; the unit cell's height c of 25.6 nm causes problems associated with multiple scattering, radiation damage, limited depth of field and a more pronounced Ewald sphere curvature. In general, they lead to projections of the unit cell, which at the desired resolution, cannot be interpreted following the weak-phase approximation. Circumventing this problem is possible through the use of 400 keV electrons. Although the overall contrast is lowered due to a smaller scattering cross-section, the signal-to-noise ratio of especially higher order reflections will improve due to a smaller contribution of inelastic scattering. We report here our preliminary results demonstrating the feasability of the data collection procedure at 400 kV.Crystals of crotoxin complex were prepared on carbon-covered holey-carbon films, quench frozen in liquid ethane, inserted into a Gatan 626 holder, transferred into a JEOL 4000EX electron microscope equipped with a pair of anticontaminators operating at −184°C and examined under low-dose conditions. Selected area electron diffraction patterns (EDP's) and images of the crystals were recorded at 400 kV and −167°C with dose levels of 5 and 9.5 electrons/Å, respectively.

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Scanning Tunneling Microscopy of Amorphous Carbon Films

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100180343 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (1) ◽

pp. 318-319

Author(s):

Mircea Fotino ◽

D.C. Parks

Keyword(s):

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy ◽

Amorphous Carbon ◽

Carbon Films ◽

Atomic Scale ◽

Scanning Tunneling ◽

Tunneling Microscopy ◽

Amorphous Carbon Films ◽

Image Optimization ◽

Step Procedure ◽

Stm Images

In the last few years scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) has made it possible and easily accessible to visualize surfaces of conducting specimens at the atomic scale. Such performance allows the detailed characterization of surface morphology in an increasing spectrum of applications in a wide variety of fields. Because the basic imaging process in STM differs fundamentally from its equivalent in other well-established microscopies, good understanding of the imaging mechanism in STM enables one to grasp the correct information content in STM images. It thus appears appropriate to explore by STM the structure of amorphous carbon films because they are used in many applications, in particular in the investigation of delicate biological specimens that may be altered through the preparation procedures.All STM images in the present study were obtained with the commercial instrument Nanoscope II (Digital Instruments, Inc., Santa Barbara, California). Since the importance of the scanning tip for image optimization and artifact reduction cannot be sufficiently emphasized, as stressed by early analyses of STM image formation, great attention has been directed toward adopting the most satisfactory tip geometry. The tips used here consisted either of mechanically sheared Pt/Ir wire (90:10, 0.010" diameter) or of etched W wire (0.030" diameter). The latter were eventually preferred after a two-step procedure for etching in NaOH was found to produce routinely tips with one or more short whiskers that are essentially rigid, uniform and sharp (Fig. 1) . Under these circumstances, atomic-resolution images of cleaved highly-ordered pyro-lytic graphite (HOPG) were reproducibly and readily attained as a standard criterion for easily recognizable and satisfactory performance (Fig. 2).

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