A quantum mechanical scheme to reduce radiation damage in electron microscopy

Abstract

We show that radiation damage to unstained biological specimens is not an intractable problem in electron microscopy. When a structural hypothesis of a specimen is available, quantum mechanical principles allow us to verify the hypothesis with a very low electron dose. Realization of such a concept requires precise control of the electron wave front. Based on a diffractive electron optical implementation, we demonstrate the feasibility of this new method by both experimental and numerical investigations.