Product: Dual-Thickness MicroMounts™ for Crystallography

• Easy manipulation and mounting of samples from 700 μm to less than 10 μm.
• Aperture can be easily matched to the sample size, to minimize excess surrounding liquid.
• Curved tips give a convenient scoop-like action for retrieving samples and transfering them between solutions, reducing the chance of sample loss or damage.
• Rigid yet thin construction yields minimal bending in viscous solutions and in cold gas streams.
• Excellent tip visibility at large inclination angles (important when retrieving samples from small wells) due to beveling of the supporting rod. Rods can be cut using cutters or bent using pliers.
• Wicking aperture naturally draws excess liquid away from the sample, reducing X-ray background scatter and sample stresses during flash cooling.
• Lowest background X-ray scatter of any commercial mount (roughly 1/3 that of mylar mounts).
• Precise dimensions for easy sample alignment. Tips are attached to the steel rods with better than 50 μm accuracy.

Available in aperture sizes of 10,20,30,50,75,100,150,and 200 μm

MicroMounts™ are the world's highest performance tools for retrieving and mounting protein crystals, virus crystals, and small molecule/inorganic crystals. They can be also used for handling small fragile samples of all sorts, including biological, archaeological and mineralogical samples. MicroMounts are compatible with all standard X-ray hardware, and can be inserted in 0.7 mm mechanical pencilsor micromanipulators for easy handling.

Micromounts consist of thin polymer tips attached to beveled non-magnetic 0.025" (0.64 mm) diameter stainless steel rods. Their patented design provides an excellent combination of X-ray and optical transparency, mechanical rigidity and flexibility, and precision dimensions.

The polymer is unoriented, so the background scatter does not show the sharp peaks of competing mounts, and has the lowest possible birefringence.

Curving the tip by wrapping its base around the rod makes it rigid, and provides a scoop-like action in retrieving samples. The tip can also flex and bend flat against e.g., a well or glass slide, to dislodge and then slip under a sample.

A wicking aperture draws excess liquid away from the sample, reducing background scatter and allowing faster sample cooling for cryocrystallography.

Since 2008, MicroMounts (and all of our other products) have been made using the most mechanically robust unoriented polymer available. With proper care - especially during cleaning - each MicroMountcan be used to harvest and measure dozens of crystals.

Extremely easy to use, novices can be mounting samples in minutes. MicroMounts make your crystallography pipeline more efficient by maximizing the odds of successful mounting, cooling and data collection.