[3dem] glow discharge "fireball"

[Talya Levitz]

Hi Jason,

We see sparking sometimes in ours and the full fireballs in another glow
discharger we use. Agreed with others that putting parafilm over the
aluminum block or using a glass slide fixes the issues, but this is
annoying. We significantly decreased our sparking by cleaning the glass
chamber and everything inside. Ted Pella makes a cheap jar cleaner that
helped us out with this:

*896* PELCO Bell Jar Kleen™, 14 oz. each $*14.36*
Not sure if it will fix your issues but could be worth a try.

Talya

On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 4:21 PM <3dem-request at ncmir.ucsd.edu> wrote:

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>    1. glow discharge "fireball" (Jason Kaelber)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2026 21:20:10 +0000
> From: Jason Kaelber <jason.kaelber at rutgers.edu>
> To: "3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu" <3dem at ncmir.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [3dem] glow discharge "fireball"
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> Dear 3DEM,
> When glow discharging with our Pelco easiGlow (e.g. at 15 mA, 0.39 mBar
> room air for 25 seconds) on the aircraft aluminum grid blocks, sometimes a
> ball of plasma will be observed above one grid, or one ball each among
> several randomly-placed grids in the block. The ball is light pink and may
> manifest at any time during the discharge, typically enduring until the end
> of the cycle but perhaps flickering in and out of existence. Below I
> enclose a photograph of the phenomenon:
> [cid:d33a233b-ab8e-4ca5-984e-cf9e704962bc]
> Have any of you observed this? Do you know the cause or solution? It
> doesn't happen when we glow discharge on glass slides?but on the other
> hand, we we using the aluminum blocks for a couple years without issue
> before ever seeing this, and ordering a brand-new block doesn't help.
>
> Thank you in advance for your helpful replies,
> Jason Kaelber
>
> --
> J T Kaelber, PhD
> Director, Rutgers CryoEM & Nanoimaging Facility<
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://iqb.rutgers.edu/rcnf__;!!Mih3wA!BIMk5_e1YisTp15tE62Tm9GjzuMp9oIisvDNDFnWqD4hL0hxj6BG22PIxpNMKjd0GwSy7ahGu05ofPVEsuxIfUGqqGFBWg$
> >
> Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine
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