Specimen Preparation of Rock Forming Minerals by Using Ion Beam for TEM Observation.

Improved focused ion beam target preparation of (S)TEM specimen--a method for obtaining ultrathin lamellae.

Specimen quality is vital to (scanning) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) investigations. In particular, thin specimens are required to obtain excellent high-resolution TEM images. Conventional focused ion beam (FIB) preparation methods cannot be employed to reliably create high quality specimens much thinner than 20 nm. We have developed a method for in situ target preparation of ultrathi...

TEM specimen preparation techniques

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a powerful tool for the investigation of the microstructure of materials, providing crystallographic information and composition at the nanometer scale. For such studies, samples should be transparent to the electron beam. In this review, TEM sample preparation techniques for different classes of materials, such as metals and alloys, multilayered coatin...

Direct observation of liquid crystals using cryo-TEM: specimen preparation and low-dose imaging.

Liquid crystals (LCs) represent a challenging group of materials for direct transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies due to the complications in specimen preparation and the severe radiation damage. In this paper, we summarize a series of specimen preparation methods, including thin film and cryo-sectioning approaches, as a comprehensive toolset enabling high-resolution direct cryo-TEM ob...

Advanced Techniques in TEM Specimen Preparation

The recent development of Dual-BeamTM or Cross-BeamTM FIB systems has gradually taken over the traditional single beam FIB systems. A typical FIB column contains a liquid metal ion source that produces a finely focused Ga ion beam. The primary Ga ion beam is accelerated by 30-50 kV, and directed towards the features of interest on the specimen. The incident ion beam will sputter atoms from the ...

Focused high- and low-energy ion milling for TEM specimen preparation