Application of Ionic Liquid Coating Method to Observation of Non-conductive Samples by a Mobile Scanning Electron Microscope for Elementary Science Education

Abstract

A battery-powered mobile scanning electron microscope which can be used even in outdoors has been developed for the purpose of showing the mystery of nature and wonder of technology to pupils/students of elementary schools, junior and senior high schools, and so on. We call this compact and easy-operation microscope the MUST-SEM (mobile-use see-through scanning electron microscope). In order to observe non-conductive samples, we employed the ionic liquid coating method. Sample preparation using this method can be carried out easily and rapidly. Observation results of microfossils of Jurassic radiolarian, intertwined genomic DNA fibers extracted from plants, and etc. are reported.