Xl30 field emission sem

Visualisation of the cellular morphology and cell interaction with the material surface was observed via SEM microscopy (Philips XL30 Field Emission SEM, Amsterdam, Netherlands). The discs were initially fixed in 3% glutaraldehyde and 0.1 M cacodylate buffer and stored at 4˚C overnight. This was followed by a series of ethyl alcohol dehydration for 10 min with subsequent drying in hexamethyldisilazane. The specimen discs were finally coated with 95% gold and 5% palladium (Polaron E5000 Sputter Coater, Quorum Technologies, Laughton, UK) for visualisation under the SEM microscope.

Qualitative visualisation of the composite discs was carried out with the aid of scanning electron microscopy. To image the composite discs, they were coated with 95% gold and 5% palladium (Polaron E5000 Sputter Coater, Quoram Technologies, Laughton, UK) and SEM (Philips XL30 Field Emission SEM, Amsterdam, Netherlands) was used to visualise the surface of the specimen discs.

The ECS nanowires were evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), respectively. SEM and in-situ EDS measurements were performed utilizing a Philips XL-30 field-emission SEM equipped with an energy-dispersive X-ray detector. To acquire the elemental composition at each point on the sample, the substrate with the sample was fixed on an encoded x–y translation stage for locating the position accurately. The high-resolution TEM images were obtained by JEM-2100F TEM with an accelerating voltage of 200 kV. Samples were transferred to a 200-mesh copper grid using optical fiber probes under microscope observation. The samples on the substrate were placed onto the sample holder while a beam focusing on regions of nanowires was 0.5–1.0 mm.