Epitaxial sandwiching of biopolymers

A technique has been developed for occluding biopolymer molecules in thin films of epitaxial gold. The method relies on deposition of the biopolymer from aqueous solution by “streaking” followed by continued ordered deposition of gold on the single crystal gold support film. The advantage of this technique of specimen preparation for electron microscopy are the high resolution (of the order of 0.5 nm) and excellent stability while under observation. Good contrast has been obtained reproducibly and is associated with the presence of the biopolymer as an occluded defect in the gold crystal.