I know the machine fires electrons at a sample and the electrons are reflected back. How does that translate into a super detailed image? Why is it higher resolution than a light microscope? Why can it only use dead samples?
Edit: Also, why is it in black and white?
In: Technology
Did you ever s those toys with the pins, and you can push your hand into it and it makes an imprint of your hand?
It’s like that, except instead of many little pins it’s a beam of electrons, they “poke” into all the nooks and crannies of the surface and it forms an image. It’s not in colour because it’s basically just the “shape” of the object and the shape of it’s surface. Shapes don’t have colour.
The subject in the electron microscope is placed in a VACUUM, so any living subject would generally become not alive anymore. Soft animals like a worm have to be freeze-dried. Also the subject is coated in a metallic film of gold or platinum, again, not a process you can do with a living animal.
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