Diatome diamond knives

A small sample section (2 mm × 4 mm) was cut and embedded into a flat mold with Polybed 812 (Polysciences, Inc., Warrington, PA), which was then polymerized at 60°C for 24 hours. The sample resin block was sectioned under ambient conditions, using a Leica UC6 microtome (Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany) and DiATOME diamond knives (DiATOME, Hatfield, PA). Ultra-thin sections (70 nm) were examined by JEOL 1200EX II electron microscopy (Jeol, Peabody, MA). Transmission electron microscope (TEM) images were processed and analyzed using Image J software (NIH, Bethesda, MD) to quantify average particle diameter (nm) and nearest neighbor distance (nm). The dispersion parameter (D) was quantified using the average particle area (μ) and the standard deviation of the particle area (σ), as shown in Equation 2.²⁴ $$\mathbf{D}=\frac{0.2}{\sqrt{2\pi }}\cdot \frac{\mu }{\sigma }$$

A small piece (2 mm × 4 mm) of the sample was cut and embedded in the flat mold with Polybed 812 (Polysciences, Inc., Warrington, PA) and polymerized at 60°C, overnight. The sample resin block was sectioned at room temperature, using Leica UC6 microtome (Leica Microsystems, Wetzlar, Germany) and DiATOME diamond knives (DiATOME, Hatfield, PA). Ultra-thin sections (70 nm) were examined by JEOL 1200EX II electron microscopy (Jeol, Peabody, MA).