High pressure freezer

Samples for TEM can be processed either by means of chemical fixation or by cryo-immobilization as a first step in the sample preparation workflow. Cryo-immobilization stabilizes the specimen by the physical process of freezing. The main advantages consist of a fixation time of the order of milliseconds and a simultaneous immobilisation of all cellular components. Different cryo-immobilization methods exist that vary in the depth of good freezing - that is in a way that ice crystals are not formed or are so small that cellular structures are not distorted. Among these methods, high-pressure freezing is the most powerful cryo-immobilization method for thicker samples and can be realized at the MPIPZ with the CryoCapCell HPM Live µ.