Sample preparation

Specimen preparation for transmission electron microscopy is an unavoidable and critical step for any TEM experiments. It is frequently a very challenging task, which may decide on the success or failure of an arduously planned TEM experiment. All of the existing methods for the TEM-specimen preparation follow one common principle – the thinner, the better, which means that the thickness of the TEM-specimen ideally should not exceed 100 nm (10nm for HRTEM).

Furthermore, a high quality ultra-thin TEM-specimen should not only reflect the material properties on the nm scale, but also have a homogeneous and clean surface to avoid measurement artefacts.

Conventional Sample Preparation

The conventional TEM-Specimen preparation begins with cutting the bulk sample into small pieces followed by several steps of half-automated material abrasion, until the specimen reaches the desired thickness. In a final step, argon ion milling helps to obtain the acquired ultra-thin electron transparent area.

Focused Ion Beam Sample Preparation

In contrast to time-consuming conventional TEM-specimen preparation methods, the focused ion beam (FIB) sputtering in a dual beam SEM system allows to produce high-quality specimens for various TEM studies in a (semi-)automated and much quicker way (within several hours).