The Evactron is being used by University College London’s School of Pharmacy to improve electron microscopy.
UCL’s School of Pharmacy is home to the Electron Microscopy Unit which uses a number of advanced electron microscopes from FEI.
The unit is currently focused on providing a contract service mainly imaging drug delivery carriers which are usually low melting point polymers which may be thermally and/or vacuum sensitive.
Delivering sharp, clear images is the focus of the unit and the adoption of an Evactron downstream plasma cleaning unit from XEI Scientific/Acutance claims to have helped deliver such results.
Degradation of biological samples at 37°C results in hydrocarbon contamination around the sharp end of the microscope column results in the microscope behaving erratically because of charging.
For example, if the operator wishes to change the beam energy or magnification, the system starts to behave unpredictably. This may result in the image shooting off to one side or distorting which means the column needs to be realigned.
This causes poor performance at low beam energies. The addition of the Evactron system to clean contamination off the sharp end of the column has resulted in a much more predictable and usable system at low beam energies.
The Evactron De-Contaminator uses a remote RF plasma source to produce gas-phase radicals that flow downstream through the chamber, eliminating contamination by chemical etch.
