Serial block-face scanning electron microscopy is a method to generate high resolution three-dimensional images from small samples.
Practical serial block-face scanning electron microscopy was invented in 2004 by Winfried Denk at the Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg and is commercially available from Gatan Inc.,[4] Thermo Fisher Scientific (VolumeScope)[5] and ConnectomX.
The EyeWire project harnesses human computation in a game to trace neurons through images of a volume of retina obtained using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy.
[7] Many different samples can be prepared for serial block-face scanning electron microscopy and the ultramicrotome is able to cut many materials, therefore this technique has wider applicability.
Because cutting by the ultra-microtome is extremely fast (comparing to the milling process in FIB-SEM), it can expose a wide area of the material (x and y directions) every sectioning.