Abstract

Hard X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) and bionanotechnology are inseparably connected in many important ways. On one hand – distribution and quantity of nanomaterials with unique elemental content can be best traced in biological samples by XFM; on the other hand, high elemental density of nanoparticles allows pursuit of interesting scientific questions with the use of XFM at different resolutions. Serendipitously, some of the early bionanotechonlogy research occurred at the Argonne National Lab (ANL) in late 1990’s at the same time when Advanced Photon Source (APS) was built as the first third generation synchrotron in USA on the ANL grounds. In 1999 XFM at the APS was possible only at room temperature and the idea occurred to use XFM to evaluate nanoparticle distribution in single cells. Experiments with cell culture samples exposed to TiO₂ nanoparticles proved informative and this initial success served as a basis for continued demands to improve XFM instrumentation. Eventually, this resulted in development of Bionanoprobe – a high resolution, cryo- and tomography capable instrument; as well as other innovations allowing tomography and cryogenic sample imaging at other APS instruments. These improvements as well as anticipated APS upgrades come in time for work on new types of nanomaterials and biological samples with subtly altered elemental makeup.