About our facility

EMF began its journey in 1996 with the procurement of the first field emission gun (FEG) cryo-electron microscope at Sheffield. This was the first FEG cryoEM installation at a UK university. The facility underwent a major upgrade in 2014 through investment from the ‘Imagine:Imaging Life’ initiative at the University of Sheffield and this brought the EMF to the cutting edge of the resolution revolution of cryoEM.

In an EM experiment we ‘shine’ electrons on the sample to resolve fine details. A series of lenses inside the electron microscope collect the scattered electron waves forming and magnifying the image, and then we record these images on an electron detecting camera. The downstream use and degree of processing of the images depend on the experimental goal and can range from just looking at the beautiful electron micrographs to understand biology, physics or chemistry to extensive image processing for a 3-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the sample.

A wide range of biological samples can be visualised using EM, ranging from individual protein molecules to slices of cells and even blocks of tissues. EM is also widely used for characterising non-biological objects, such as soft polymers and metal crystals.