Premium
Progression Of Fusion During Rapid Freezing For Electron Microscopy
Author(s) -
Harreveld A.,
Trubatch Janett
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.1979.tb00176.x
Subject(s) - condenser (optics) , fusion , materials science , dielectric , electron microscope , composite material , layer (electronics) , transmission electron microscopy , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , optics , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , chromatography , light source , philosophy , linguistics , physics
SUMMARY The method used to determine the rate of fusion was based on the large difference in the dielectric constants of water and ice. A thin (50–60 μm) slice of a gelatin gel was used as the dielectric in a plate condenser. The slice was placed on a metal electrode built in a specimen carrier which was dropped on a silver freezing surface kept at below 70 K, forming the other plate of the condenser. Freezing of the gelatin causes a marked decrease in a 20,000 cycle current passing through the condenser. Since the thickness of the layer of frozen material was shown to be a function of the reciprocal of the current, it was possible to determine the course of fusion of the section. Freezing started at a high rate which declined during the first 5 ms but then increased again and usually became quite high at the end of fusion.