Facilities



Facility For Cryo-transmission Electron Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy

Electron microscopes are instruments for high resolution and high magnification imaging. We have 200KV Transmission Electron Microscope from JEOL, Japan. The system can be used for routine TEM studies. This system has been commissioned along with cryo-accessories for study of macromolecular complexes. This has a plunge freezer along with cryo transfer holder to image specimens in the frozen state and fitted with a Gatan 2Kx2K CCD camera for acquiring high-resolution images. Cryo electron microscopy is a technique in which macromolecular complexes are plunge frozen and imaged. The images are analyzed using various software programs to obtain high resolution, i.e., a few angstroms resolution information in three dimensions. This facilitates tracing of almost all the molecules in a 3D space. Since the samples are plunge frozen they are imaged in a near to native state. The reconstructs obtained can be overlaid by X-ray diffraction data.

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) from Hitachi is a variable pressure microscope. It can be used for scanning samples, which do not require any preprocessing as well as processed samples after coating with metals. This system is being used to analyze topographical patterns and changes of various samples.