Coating of samples for microscopy
AssigneeMochii, Inc.
InventorChristopher Su-Yan Own
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A coater is provided for depositing a coating onto a sequence of samples to be analyzed in a microscope. The coater includes a process chamber to maintain a low-pressure vacuum or controlled gaseous environment at a deposition region inside the process chamber, a sample conveyor to support and convey samples through the deposition region, an evaporant supply to vaporize material from an evaporant source onto the samples at the deposition region, and a controller to control one or more operations of the coater. The sample conveyor is adapted to convey the samples in discrete movements and/or the coater is adapted to provide one or more discrete pulses of power to the evaporant supply.
Claims20
A coater for depositing a coating onto a sequence of discrete samples to be analyzed in a microscope, the coater comprising:
- a process chamber to maintain a low-pressure vacuum or controlled gaseous environment at a deposition region inside the process chamber;
- a sample conveyor to support and sequentially convey discrete samples through the deposition region;
- an evaporant supply, comprising an evaporant source, to vaporize a coating material from the evaporant source onto the samples at the deposition region;
- a power supply to provide power to the evaporant supply;
- and
- a controller to control one or more operations of the coater,
- wherein the sample conveyor is adapted to convey the discrete samples in a plurality of discrete movements in one direction and/or the controller is adapted to control the power supply to provide one or more discrete pulses of power to the evaporant supply, the frequency of the plurality of discrete movements or the one or more discrete pulses of power corresponding to a rate at which the discrete samples pass through the deposition region.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.