Practical factors affecting the performance of a thin-film phase plate for transmission electron microscopy

A number of practical issues must be addressed when using thin carbon films as quarter-wave plates for Zernike phase-contrast electron microscopy. We describe, for example, how we meet the more stringent requirements that must be satisfied for beam alignment in this imaging mode. In addition we address the concern that one might have regarding the loss of some of the scattered electrons as they pass through such a phase plate. We show that two easily measured parameters, (1) the low-resolution image contrast produced in cryo-EM images of tobacco mosaic virus particles and (2) the fall-off of the envelope function at high resolution, can be used to quantitatively compare the data quality for Zernike phase-contrast images and for defocused bright-field images. We describe how we prepare carbon-film phase plates that are initially free of charging or other effects that degrade image quality. We emphasize, however, that even though the buildup of hydrocarbon contamination can be avoided by heating the phase plates during use, their performance nevertheless deteriorates over the time scale of days to weeks, thus requiring their frequent replacement in order to maintain optimal performance.