Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Microfluidic Chips for In Situ Crystal X-ray Diffraction and In Situ Dynamic Light Scattering for Serial Crystallography
Published on: April 24, 2018
Ultrathin silicon nitride microchip for in situ/operando microscopy with high spatial resolution and spectral
Kunmo Koo1,2, Zhiwei Li3,4, Yukun Liu1,4
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Abstract:
Utilization of in situ/operando methods with broad beams and localized probes has accelerated our understanding of fluid-surface interactions in recent decades. The closed-cell microchips based on silicon nitride (SiNx) are widely used as "nanoscale reactors" inside the high-vacuum electron microscopes. However, the field has been stalled by the high background scattering from encapsulation (typically ~100 nanometers) that severely limits the figures of merit for in situ performance. This adverse effect is particularly notorious for gas cell as the sealing membranes dominate the overall scattering, thereby blurring any meaningful signals and limiting the resolution. Herein, we show that by adopting the back-supporting strategy, encapsulating membrane can be reduced substantially, down to ~10 nanometers while maintaining structural resiliency. The systematic gas cell work demonstrates advantages in figures of merit for hitherto the highest spatial resolution and spectral visibility. Furthermore, this strategy can be broadly adopted into other types of microchips, thus having broader impact beyond the in situ/operando fields.
More Related Videos
14:09High-Throughput Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence and Direct Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy Using a Photonic Chip
Published on: November 16, 2019
07:20Fabrication of Micro-Patterned Chip with Controlled Thickness for High-Throughput Cryogenic Electron Microscopy
Published on: April 21, 2022
Related Concept Videos
Imaging Biological Samples with Optical Microscopy
In optical microscopy, the specimen to be viewed is placed on a glass slide and clipped on the stage...
Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy
Super-resolution Fluorescence Microscopy
Overview of Electron Microscopy
Overview of Microscopy Techniques
Three-Dimensional Microscopy in Microbiology