
Preventing charging effects
This extension of the 3View® system from Gatan, Inc eliminates specimen charging. A gas injection
system consisting of a tiny capillary needle is precisely located above the sample. Nitrogen is guided
through this needle directly onto the block face surface while the chamber is maintained under high
vacuum. This eliminates charging without degrading image quality. The needle retracts automatically
during the cutting cycle so the workflow is uninterrupted and high acquisition rates are maintained.
Producing thousands of serial images in a single day
The 3View® system consists of an ultramicrotome directly integrated into the vacuum chamber of the
ZEISS Sigma and ZEISS GeminiSEM field emission scanning electron microscopes. It enables automated. serial block face imaging of embedded samples (e.g. cells or tissue) with a slice thickness down to 15 nanometers. The sample is continuously cut and imaged, and a three-dimensional rendering of the sample with nanometer-scale resolution can be reconstructed.