STXM

Soft x-ray scanning transmission x-ray microscopy (STXM) is a transmission microscopy technique providing chemical speciation-sensitive images at a spatial resolution down to ~15 nm coupled with x-ray absorption near edge spectra (XANES) over a relatively extended range of energies (between 100 and 2000 eV). This allows characterizing the speciation (i.e., coordination or redox state) of various elements including the C and Ca. Owing to collaborations with Sirine Fakra at the Advanced Light Source on the cryo-STXM on beamline 11.0.2 and Rachid Sufal, Adam Hitchcock and Sufal Swaraj on beamline HERMES at SOLEIL, we have analyzed the distribution of Ca in different intracellular pools in the cyanobacteria (Benzerara et al., in prep).

Scanning transmission x-ray microscope on beamline 11.0.2 at the Advanced Light Source (Berkeley, USA).