Phase plates and contrast enhancement
According to physicist prof. Henny Zandbergen (TU Delft), electron microscopy in life science has two buzzwords: image contrast and beam damage. Therefore he focuses on developing a phase plate and better detection systems. The phase plate will improve image contrast by allowing phase information to be imaged as an amplitude image. Better detection systems will result in more images before the sample is damaged. These developments will increase the resolution of images obtained by single particle analysis and tomography.
Figure: Some calculations with a quasi phase plate in which half of the diffraction pattern is blocked (central beam is not blocked). The model is given in the lower right; it is a 1nm thick amorphous C film with a hole of about 1.5 nm. The top two images are with and without the quasi phase plate. The lower left image is for a defocus of -100 nm. All images are displayed with the same contrast.
