Authors:

Sophia Deng

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Electron microscopy offers nanoscale resolution to image cellular ultrastructure such as membrane and small organelles, and has been crucial in important advances in modern bioimaging and cellular biology. However, it results in grayscale pictures that cannot resolve distinct biomolecules—key to visualizing complex intracellular dynamics and decoding biological organization. By exploiting materials that emit photons when excited by an electron flux via cathodoluminescence (CL), it is possible to achieve a multicolor electron microscopy modality that captures colorful photos of cellular architecture at the nanoscale. We investigate the limitations and advantages of CL-based imaging using Monte Carlo simulations of electron scattering in different materials that exhibited CL, such as cell and rare-earth nanoparticles. These materials can serve as CL tags for biomolecules. We examine the electron interaction volume and the lateral and depth electron energy loss curves under different beam energies to infer the distribution of CL generation when imaging with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Our analysis provides the energy-dependent CL-imaging resolution for embedded features in an SEM. We further compare it with existing modes of SEM imaging using secondary electrons and backscattered electrons and attempt to compare the quantum efficiencies of these modalities of bioimaging.

Source:

Columbia / Biology / 2026

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Co-authors:

Sophia Deng