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A cryo high-vacuum shuttle for correlative cryogenic investigations
Tacke, S. ; Krzyžánek, Vladislav ; Reichelt, R. ; Klingauf, J.
The preservation of the native state is the key element in sample preparation. In the case of hydrated objects, embedding in vitreous (amorphous) ice and subsequent examination under cryogenic (cryo) conditions are the means of choice. Over the last years, cryogenic techniques such as cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) or soft X-ray cryo-microscopy have become increasingly popular, as they provide a direct, unaltered view on the specimen. However, to provide a snapshot of the pristine architecture of the specimen, cryo techniques require constant cooling below the recrystallization temperature of 138°K and avoidance of any contamination. This has been proven to be particularly challenging in the case of correlative cryo investigations, since these methods include several transfer steps due to their extensive post-processing and complex workflow. In the past, several transfer concepts were introduced and they are now commercially available. However, these systems are limited either by not offering a high-vacuum environment or constraining the applications to a restricted workflow.
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