Zeiss Gemini SEM 460
The Zeiss Gemini SEM 460 is funded by an MRC Equipment award and will be based within the Crick EM STP.
The microscope is a Zeiss Gemini SEM 460 with an L-shape 90° Ion-Sculptor Focused Ion Beam (FIB) column.
This is a novel type of FIBSEM, that revolutionises imaging in neuroscience and cell biology by allowing the acquisition of super-large tissue volumes at nanoscale isotropic resolution.
The key technical development is to mount the FIB horizontally, so that it coincides with the SEM imaging plane. Pixel distortions generated by conventional FIBSEMs are avoided and electron capture can be maximised. This in turn permits faster scan speeds.
This equipment will help us address a range of fundamental scientific questions, from how brain circuits are wired to how viruses manipulate membranes in their host cells, across the fields of neuroscience, cell biology and virology. Such questions would be impossible to investigate using conventional FIBSEM instruments.
The Zeiss Gemini SEM 460 will be funded by an MRC Equipment award won by Arnd Roth and Beverley Clark in partnership with scientists at the Crick, University of Sussex (Kevin Staras) and Newcastle University (Claudia Racca). It will be housed within the Crick EM STP.
The new microscope will image more than hundred times larger volumes at the same extremely high resolution as classical focused ion beam scanning electron microscopes (FIBSEMs).
Value: approx. £950,000.
