Successful transmission electron microscopy in all of its manifestations depends on the quality of the specimens examined. Biological specimen preparation protocols have usually been more rigorous and time consuming than those in the physical sciences. For this reason, there has been a wealth of scienti c literature detailing speci c preparation steps and numerous excellent books on the preparation of b- logical thin specimens. This does not mean to imply that physical science specimen preparation is trivial. For the most part, most physical science thin specimen pre- ration protocols can be...