Seeing molecules, materials, and molecular machines at atomic resolution and in three dimensions is critical to nanoscience. In order to facilitate this, the Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN) was established at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) through a major instrumentation grant from NIH and support from UCLA.

The Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines is a group of people with diverse expertise and very specialized equipment working to pave the foundation for nanotechnology. We use a combination of cryo-electron microscopy (or cryoEM) and three-dimensional reconstruction and computer modeling to reconstruct high-resolution models of viruses and macromolecular complexes. We specialize in the following:

EICN provides advanced electron imaging tools for a broad range of research, covering a scale range from tens of micrometers to angstroms, and delivering valuable structural information for cell biology, microbiology, biomolecular, molecular, and materials sciences. The state-of-the-art EICN facility offers all major electron microscopy (EM) modalities, including:

Single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM)
Cryo-electron tomography (cryoET)
Cryo-immuno EM
Single-particle 3D reconstruction
3D tomographic reconstruction
Ultrathin sectioning (room temperature and cryo)
High resolution shadows
High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR TEM)
High-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM)
Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy; (EDX) analysis for mass and elementary mapping