Application of Scanning Electron-Acoustic Microscopy to Biological Materials

The imaging methods and results for biological materials by scanning electron acoustic microscopy (SEAM) have been introduced in this paper. The images of the amplitude and phase of a plant leaf by SEAM show that the amplitude image involves more surface features but the phase image displays more subsurface structures. The laminated imaging experiments, which use the x- and y-components of SEAM signals with different reference phases, show the subsurface structures in different depths of biological materials, such as, plant leafs, biological tissues, etc. Using a photothermal technique, the thermal diffusion lengths of the samples of biological materials can be evaluated, by which the depths of the subsurface structures in the laminated images can be estimated. In addition, the damage areas of the leaf and muscles are also imaged by SEAM. For comparison, the second electron images of the same areas of the samples studied by SEAM are also obtained. The images show that SEAM is sensitive to micro-structures of surface, and also subsurface, structures of biological materials.