The Denton Vacuum Evaporator is used in many different specimen preparation methods — mostly employed in electron imaging. Thicker coatings of metal (such as gold, platinum:palladium, or gold:palladium) can be applied to specimens of nearly any shape.

Carbon coatings can be evaporated onto grids as a support layer or as an additional stabilizing agent for polymer coated grids. Grids that will be used for imaging isolated macromolecules (such as proteins) can be glow discharged to decrease their hydrophobicity.