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STM imaging of metal‐coated cell plugs of the archaeobacterium Methanospirillum hungatei GP1
Author(s) -
XU W.,
BLACKFORD B. L.,
MULHERN P. J.,
JERICHO M. H.,
FIRTEL M.,
BEVERIDGE T. J.
Publication year - 1995
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.1365-2818.1995.tb03579.x
Subject(s) - paracrystalline , microscopy , electron microscope , materials science , lattice constant , metal , crystallography , chemistry , physics , optics , metallurgy , diffraction
Summary Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) images of Pt/Ir‐ and Pt/Ir/C‐coated cell plugs of Methanospirillum hungatei showed paracrystalline structures with P6 symmetry and an 18‐nm lattice constant, in agreement with electron microscopy studies. The three‐dimensional STM images unambiguously distinguished the two morphologically different proteinaceous plug assemblies and led to an improved understanding of the natural internal organization of whole plugs. Tip convolution effects and the grain size of the metal coating complicated interpretation of finer structures. We discuss possible imaging mechanisms to explain observations in which part of the film was removed but the remaining part of the structure was still imaged reproducibly.