Graphene Liquid Cell Fabrication
Naiad-1
Assemble GLCs in 3 minutes
Easy-to-use software guides the user through the assembly process
Liquid cell density 10-100 / µm2
Quickly locate areas of interest while on the microscope
98% success rate with no experience required
Premium graphene retains integrity and coverage throughout transfer process
Graphene Liquid Cells: A High-Performance Platform for Liquid-Phase TEM
Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) are sub-micron scale pockets of liquid encapsulated between two layers of graphene, creating a sealed, vacuum-tight environment. The graphene layers adhere tightly through van der Waals forces, forming a highly stable and robust liquid chamber.
GLCs are ideal for high-resolution liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy (TEM) due to several key advantages:
Exceptional Electron Transparency: Ultra-thin graphene serves as one of the most electron-transparent window materials available, allowing for minimal imaging interference.
Reduced Electron Beam Damage: The graphene environment significantly mitigates sample degradation under electron irradiation, preserving structural integrity.
Native-State Preservation: Encapsulated samples remain fully hydrated, maintaining their native morphology and function.
No Drying or Fixation Required: GLCs eliminate the need for sample drying, chemical fixation, or cryo-freezing, simplifying preparation and reducing artifacts.
Application Areas:
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Product Features
Naiad-1: Accessible, Efficient, and Reproducible GLC Fabrication
Naiad-1 enables any research lab to access reliable and efficient GLC fabrication with minimal training or infrastructure thereby offering a reliable and user-friendly solution for efficient sample preparation. This compact benchtop device automates the manipulation of graphene and guides users through each step of the assembly process, ensuring consistent and reproducible results.
Automated Graphene Handling
A major challenge in Graphene Liquid Cell (GLC) fabrication lies in the precise manipulation of graphene sheets. Graphene is atomically thin and highly sensitive to mechanical stress and contamination. During manual handling, it is particularly susceptible to tearing, wrinkling, folding, or attracting impurities. Even minor inconsistencies in alignment or transfer can compromise the quality and reproducibility of the liquid cell.
Naiad-1 overcomes these limitations with an integrated automated graphene handling system, engineered to bring consistency and control to this delicate fabrication step. The process begins with CVD-grown graphene supported on a copper disc, serving as the graphene source. Naiad-1 incorporates an automated copper etching protocol, which dissolves the copper substrate and releases the monolayer graphene into a controlled liquid medium.
Following this, Naiad-1 utilizes a loop-assisted robotic transfer mechanism to handle the freestanding graphene with high precision. The system lifts the graphene sheet from the liquid bath and accurately positions it onto a target support grid that already contains the sample and bottom graphene layer. This robotic placement ensures micro-scale alignment and clean contact between layers, which are critical for forming sealed, vacuum-tight liquid cells with high yield and uniformity. By automating this intricate process, Naiad-1 eliminates the variability inherent in manual techniques.
Ultra-Thin Liquid Layers
A key advantage of Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) is their ability to encapsulate samples within ultra-thin liquid layers, typically ranging from tens to a few hundred nanometers in thickness. This confinement is made possible by graphene’s exceptional mechanical strength, atomic flatness, and impermeability, which together enable the formation of stable, nanometrically thin liquid environments.
These ultra-thin layers are essential for maximizing the performance of liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy (TEM), particularly when imaging sensitive biological or nanostructured materials.
Reduced Electron Scattering and Improved Image Quality: In conventional liquid-phase TEM, thick liquid layers cause significant electron scattering, which degrades image contrast and limits spatial resolution. In contrast, the minimal thickness of GLCs dramatically reduces the scattering path, allowing the electron beam to transmit through the sample with minimal distortion.
This reduction in background scattering leads to a higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), as more electrons interact directly with the sample rather than being deflected or absorbed by the surrounding liquid. The result is a substantial improvement in image clarity, enabling visualization of finer structural details and enhanced spatial resolution.
Enhanced Temporal Resolution for Dynamic Studies: The ultra-thin geometry of GLCs also facilitates faster molecular diffusion and shorter optical path lengths, which are particularly advantageous for time-resolved or in situ imaging. This enables researchers to capture rapid dynamic processes, such as chemical reactions, biomolecular interactions, or nanoparticle assembly, with greater temporal resolution and fidelity.
High Grid Yield and GLC Density
Naiad-1 delivers exceptional repeatability in Graphene Liquid Cell (GLC) fabrication by minimizing manual intervention and standardizing critical steps in the process. This results in significantly improved grid yield, GLC density, and uniformity in liquid layer thickness across multiple runs.
Grid yield refers to the percentage of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids that contain usable, intact GLCs after fabrication. A high grid yield indicates that many of the prepared grids are without defects such as ruptured graphene, air bubbles, or improper sealing and are suitable for imaging.
Naiad-1 dramatically improves grid yield by automating the most error-prone steps of the fabrication process. Its precision-controlled environment and robotic handling minimize defects, ensuring that a higher percentage of fabricated grids are immediately usable for high-resolution TEM.
GLC density refers to the number of successfully formed graphene liquid cells per TEM grid. In high-density grids, more regions of interest are available for imaging, increasing the overall data output per grid and maximizing the efficiency of each TEM session. Naiad-1 delivers high-density GLC coverage, ensuring more liquid pockets are formed and retained across the grid surface.
High-Quality Graphene Supply
G-Band Characteristics
The G-band, located near 1585 cm⁻¹, is a signature peak present in all sp² carbon systems. While it appears across all graphitic materials, its position, shape, and intensity can vary depending on the number of graphene layers. In single-layer graphene, the G-band is typically sharp and well-defined, reflecting the high degree of order in the lattice structure.
2D-Band as a Layer Number Indicator
The 2D-band, observed around ~2700 cm⁻¹, is particularly sensitive to the number of graphene layers and is often used to evaluate sample quality. For single-layer graphene, the 2D-band has a sharp and symmetric peak shape, has a higher intensity than the G-band and the I₂D/IG intensity ratio typically ≥ 2.0. A high I₂D/IG ratio combined with a narrow, symmetric 2D-band is a strong indicator of monolayer, defect-free graphene.
GLC Kit
The GLC kit include materials sufficient for the fabrication of 5 graphene liquid cells in the Naiad system. It includes:
- 5x Graphene-on-Copper Disk
- 5x TEM Grid in Cartridge
- 1x Disk Carrier
- 5x Loop Cartridge
Each batch is validated to ensure complete coverage of the TEM grid image area.
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Graphene Liquid Cell Fabrication Applications
Material science
Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) provide a significantly thinner imaging environment compared to conventional silicon nitride (SiN)-based liquid cells, enabling unprecedented resolution and clarity. Their minimal thickness allows for detailed observation of dynamic processes such as nanoparticle formation, aggregation, degradation of electrode materials, and core-shell particle behavior. GLCs enhance the capabilities of advanced imaging techniques, including room-temperature high-resolution TEM, STEM, HAADF, electron tomography, and low electron dose (low e-dose) imaging.
Liquid Phase Electron Microscopy
Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) provide an ideal platform for studying samples in liquid using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The ultra-thin graphene layers serve as the most electron-transparent windows available, enabling high-resolution imaging with minimal scattering. Held together by strong van der Waals forces, the two graphene sheets form a stable, vacuum- and water-tight enclosure. GLCs typically range from tens to hundreds of nanometers in thickness that are optimal for electron beam transparency. In addition to its mechanical strength and conductivity, graphene acts as a radical scavenger, reducing beam-induced damage from radiolysis, charging, and heating, thereby preserving sample integrity during imaging.
Life sciences
Graphene Liquid Cells (GLCs) preserve samples in a fully hydrated state, making them ideally suited for life science applications. By maintaining native physiological conditions, GLCs eliminate the need for conventional preparation techniques such as drying, freezing, or chemical fixation. Their ultra-thin structure enables high-resolution imaging of dynamic biological processes, including those involving proteins, DNA, RNA, extracellular vesicles, viruses, and whole cells. GLCs enhance the performance of advanced imaging modalities such as room-temperature high-resolution TEM, correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM), electron tomography, and low electron dose (low e-dose) imaging.
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