Sensitivity and Fading Characteristics of the 25  m Pixel Size Imaging Plate for Transmission Electron Microscopes

The sensitivity and fading characteristics of the new IP, which had a pixel size of 25 μm × 25 μm, were measured to calibrate the read-out intensity in quantitative analysis and to estimate the read-out efficiency of an IP-reader. The sensitivity showed good linearity in electron dose and a wide dynamic range of about five orders. However, the effective dynamic range was restricted to about four orders under one gain condition of the IP-reader. The fading characteristic of the new IP was independent of the electron intensity, and the decrease of the read-out intensity due to the fading was smaller than with the old IP which had a pixel size of 50 μm × 50 μm. Furthermore, the fading characteristic caused by repeated read-out was independent of the electron intensity, and the read-out intensity did not reach zero after read-out was repeated 10 times.