Figure 7.

(a) This diagram shows the cleft distance d_j of the TEM image in figure 5a in dependence on the cell width. We could clearly distinguish between close adhesion of the membranes with d_j≤10 nm, enhanced distances of d_j=100–150 nm and distances d_j≥500 nm at the border of cell–substrate interface. The intersections in the trace correspond to the gaps in the sputtered layer (white gaps in figure 5a,b). (b) Distance distribution for the cell–surface distance of the cell shown in figure 5a. We neglected distance values of d_j≥750 nm (dotted line in (a)) as we found them only at the borders of cell–substrate interface. The inset shows a part of the histogram at higher magnification. We fitted the data to a Gaussian distribution (inset, black curve) and obtained an average cleft distance of ${\overline{d}}_j=77\text{nm}$.