Uncoated Lvsem and Imaging Tof-Sims of Unfixed, Plunge Frozen, Freeze Dried, Fungal and Plant Material

Abstract

A Cryosorption Freeze Drying (CFD) system was evaluated for its effectiveness in preparing delicate biological materials for both low voltage-field emission scanning electron microscopy (LVFESEM) and imaging liquid metal (Ga) ion beam, static time-of-flight, secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). The primary goals of these studies were to investigate the retention of both structural and chemical integrity using fresh cryoprepared biological material which had not been exposed to any chemical fixation and which would not be coated by any conductive material in order to obtain information from the native surfaces. Duplicate chemically fixed samples were processed for comparison. LV-FESEM (2-2.5kV) was used to assess the quality of the structural preservation of the freezing and freeze drying (FD) protocols. Imaging static TOF-SIMS was used to investigate the surface chemical compositions of the biological samples.