Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The proposed variable pressure Cyro SEM instrument is a cost effective means of looking at fully hydrated materials or other electron beam and vacuum sensitive samples .It can be used to studying vacuum sensitive materials such as such as fragile biological structures such as fungi, plants, cells, hybrid organic-inorganic materials, metals, metallic oxides, lipids, synthetic polymers and natural polymers such as DNA, RNA and proteins etc. as well as soft or volatile samples and even liquids. The advantage of this technique is that it is simple, cost effective and the sample will in situ freeze dry in the SEM. Through top-view and cross-sectional imaging combined with cryo-stage cooling we will obtain new and accurate knowledge regarding the three-dimensional structure of hybrid materials including lipid, DNA and protein modified nanoparticles and so-gel materials.. Long dehydration and chemical fixation steps can be avoided. Also it has the ability to image without coating the sample, many times surface details are masked when coated with AU or other metals. To the best of our knowledge there is no Cryo variable pressure scanning electron microscope which has the capability to freeze the sample to sub zero temperature and operating at variable pressure in Ryerson or nearby university such as university of Toronto. The proposed equipment is an important addition to Ryerson research focus in the direction of biomedical engineering and in micro/ nanofabrication. The applicants of the proposed equipments are from several departments (Biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering) and will be joined used by research students and staff's from several laboratories for biomedical analysis in micro and nanoscale.