Charging Dynamics in Low-Dose Cryo-TEM Imaging

Many physical effects limit the quality of images that can be acquired in a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). These effects include stage and beam drift, voltage instabilities, and sample damage. Many of the instrumental effects have been reduced in newer generation microscopes and the combination of fast cameras and data processing algorithms has further minimized detrimental effects to the data quality However, there is still a predominant degradation in the quality of the first few frames of cryo Electron microscopy (cryo-EM) datasets This is commonly thought to be due to charging effects which can induce beam-induced motion and defocus changes. The current work investigates the dynamics and magnitude of this effect on vitreous ice samples which has not previously been investigated with conditions typically used in cryo-EM and at fast time scales.