Auriga fe sem

Samples for FE-SEM and EDX were prepared by drop-casting the suspensions containing the nanostructures onto cleaned silicon substrates, with subsequent drying in oven at 120 °C for 30 min.
Morphology and cell interaction investigations were carried out using a Zeiss Auriga FE-SEM available at SNN-Lab, operated at different accelerating voltages (varying between 2 and 5 keV) depending on the sample type.
The chemical elemental composition was investigated by EDX analysis equipped together with FE-SEM (Auriga, Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany), and operated at 17 keV.
The crystalline structure and phase purity analysis was performed by X-ray diffraction using a Bruker (AXS D8-Advance) X-ray powder diffractometer equipped with incident-beam focusing X-ray mirrors and a position sensitive detector (Bruker AXS GmbH, Karlsruhe, Germany). Data were measured at room temperature, in transmission mode, using Cu Kα radiation (λ = 1.5418 Å, 40 kV at 40 mA), in a 2θ angular range ranging from 20° to 140° with a step size of 0.022° and 1 s of counting time. Samples were prepared as capillary mounts. Data were evaluated by the Rietveld method using Topas software [54 ].

Treated and untreated cells of P. aeruginosa were incubated at 37 °C for 1 h, while S. aureus ones for 30 min. Short treatment times were chosen to obtain images in which the effects of ZNGs on bacterial cells were clearly visible. The tested concentration of ZNGs was 50 µg/mL in 1 mL of sterile water. The protocol for samples preparation was performed as described in Olivi et al. [21 (link)]. Imaging was performed using a Zeiss Auriga FE-SEM, operated at an accelerating voltage of 5 kV.