0000000000267894
AUTHOR
Thomas Osipowicz
Objective improvement of the visual quality of ion microscope images
The need to operate with low ion beam fluences implies the images obtained using ion microscope (IM) are often grainy and have poor visual quality compared to what can be obtained using e.g. confocal microscopy. This results from the Poissonian distribution of counts in pixels. Here we report work on some different approaches for objectively improving the visual quality of IM images. In this work we present (i) dramatic improvement in the visual image quality of off-axis and direct-scanning transmission ion microscopy (STIM) images by suppression of zero-pixels; (ii) denoising of PIXE images using wavelet filtering and (iii) use of the feature preserving characteristics of wavelet filtering…
WITHDRAWN: Measurement of beam focus quality in biomedical nuclear microscopy.
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Measurements of the stopping forces for heavy ions in Ge, Ag and Au using novel ‘polka-dot’ detectors
Measurements of the stopping forces for C-14, N-14 and O-16 ions in Ge and Au, for N-14 and F-19 ions in Ag, as well as for F-19 ions in Au have been made, respectively. A novel technique, reported recently, using PIN diodes coated directly with the stopping medium in a polka dot pattern was used. This provided a set of precise, self-consistent measurements on the same stopping medium. Results show small but significant deviations from SRIM stopping predictions and are also compared to a recently-developed empirical stopping force predictor.
Nano-imaging of single cells using STIM
Scanning transmission ion microscopy (STIM) is a technique which utilizes the energy loss of high energy (MeV) ions passing through a sample to provide structural images. In this paper, we have successfully demonstrated STIM imaging of single cells at the nano-level using the high resolution capability of the proton beam writing facility at the Centre for Ion Beam Applications, National University of Singapore. MCF-7 breast cancer cells (American Type Culture Collection [ATCC]) were seeded on to silicon nitride windows, backed by a Hamamatsu pin diode acting as a particle detector. A reasonable contrast was obtained using 1 MeV protons and excellent contrast obtained using 1 MeV alpha parti…
Characterisation of beam focus quality in biomedical nuclear microscopy: A Fourier optics approach
Abstract The central peak widths of the 2D-autocorrelation function have been investigated as a Figure of Merit (FoM) of focus quality in nuclear microscopy using a quadrupole triplet lens system. The beam focus could be reliably characterised for direct scanning transmission ion microscopy (direct-STIM) images obtained with fluences as small as 5.8 × 10 9 ions cm - 2 which colocalisation tests showed did not introduce significant beam-induced changes in the cells.
Angular spreading measurements using MeV ion microscopes
Abstract The sharpness of MeV ion microscope images is governed by small-angle scattering and associated lateral spreading of the ion beam in the sample. We have investigated measurement of the half-angle of the angular spreading distribution by characterising the image blurring in direct-Scanning Transmission Ion Microscopy (direct-STIM). In these tests Mylar™ foils of 0.5–6 μm were used to induce angular spreading. Images were taken of an electron microscope grid using 2 MeV protons with, and without, the foils in the beam path. The blurring was measured by fitting the width of a circular Gaussian point spread function to the images with and without the foil in position. The results show …
Angular and lateral spreading of ion beams in biomedical nuclear microscopy
Abstract Nuclear scattering from target atoms gives rise to a spatial broadening of energetic ion beams penetrating matter. The spatial broadening of the ion beam presents an ultimate limit to the resolving power that can be achieved in nuclear microscopy methods. The pressing of the attainable resolution limit in biomedical nuclear microscopy to dimensions approaching 10 nm, or so, implies the fundamental limitation from ion-target scattering will become increasingly significant. This effect has been investigated by a combined analytical and numerical computational approach to determine the extent and how single and multiple scattering processes limit the resolution for analysis with 2 MeV…