Energy-filtered imaging of polymer microstructure

Energy-filtered electron-spectroscopic TEM imaging provides a new way to study the microstructure of polymers without heavy-element stains. Since spectroscopic imaging exploits the signal generated directly by the electron-specimen interaction, it can produce richer and higher resolution data than possible with most staining methods. There are basically two ways to collect filtered images (fig. 1). Spectrum imaging uses a focused probe that is digitally rastered across a specimen with an entire energy-loss spectrum collected at each x-y pixel to produce a 3-D data set. Alternatively, filtering schemes such as the Zeiss Omega filter and the Gatan Imaging Filter (GIF) acquire individual 2-D images with electrons of a defined range of energy loss (δE) that typically is 5-20 eV.