The preparation of thin silver films for transmission electron microscopy by electro polishing methods has been difficult for the following
reasons: Most of the standard electropolishing solutions used contain cyanide ions and are therefore hazardous and disagreeable to use.
Further, these solutions, as well as cyanide-free ones, have be
characteristically unsatisfactoty due to difficulties in reproducibly
obtaining large, contamination-free, electron-transparent areas. We have
therefore developed a cyanide-free solution that allows us to produce
high-quality silver and silver-alloy microscope specimens with consistent
reproducibility.