Towards nanoscale confinement in TEM liquid cells*

Liquid confinement below micrometer thicknesses is of interest to several scientific disciplines and is inherently challenging to study experimentally. More extreme confinement at the single-digit nanometer scale is possible through the use of self-assembled nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes. Bridging the gap between micro- and nanoscale liquid confinement has been achieved with two-piece liquid cells within a transmission electron microscope (TEM), but irreproducibility and difficulties maintaining uniform liquid layer thickness makes high spatial and spectroscopic resolution challenging. We report on improvements made to a monolithic, in-situ TEM liquid cell¹ with sub 40nm liquid thickness that overcomes the common challenges encountered with two-piece TEM liquid cells.
1. Tanase, M. et al. High-Resolution Imaging and Spectroscopy at High Pressure: A Novel Liquid Cell for the Transmission Electron Microscope. Microsc. Microanal. 21, 1629–1638 (2015).