Sample Preparation Laboratory

CRITICAL POINT DRYER

LEICA EM CPD 300
With a critical point dryer, it is possible to dry water containing specimens in a way that they shrink almost conformal.

ADVANCED PLASMA SYSTEM

Gatan Solaris
Advanced plasma cleaning system for removal of hydrocarbon contamination on TEM and SEM samples. Cleaning small specimen for TEM or SEM use by a low energy H2 / O2 plasma.

DIMPLE GRINDER

Gatan
Used to decrease the thickness of thin TEM samples. A mechanical wheel grinds the thin specimen to a thickness of less than 1 um. Afterwards, the ultimate thinning of the TEM specimen takes place in the precision ion polishing system.

OPTICAL MICROSCOPES

Leitz metalloplan
Wide-field microscope fitted with a Jenoptik Naos camera, for inspection and imaging of samples.

Olympus SZ40
Optical microscope with zoom objective lens 6.7 - 40x for sample inspection purposes. A ring light Olympus highlight 3100 accompanies the microscope objective. Used to view rather large specimens.

SAWS

Buehler Isomet
Low speed saw. Used to slice down bigger pieces of materials to quite small ones that can be used to make TEM specimens.

Struers Labotom 3
Rough cutting saw. Saw to cut small pieces out of a big piece of material. Metals of a thickness of 1 - 2 cm can be cut into smaller pieces. If the pieces are small enough they can be pressed into an SEM.

SAMPLE PRESS

Struers Primopress
Used to slice down bigger pieces of materials to quite small ones that can be used to make TEM specimens.

GRINDER POLISHERS

Buehler ecomet 3
Multispeed polisher with double bowl configuration

Buehler Phoemix beta
Variable speed grinder polisher.

Struers Labopol 21
Double grinder, single-speed, 250 rpm, for manual preparation of materialographic specimens.

Struers Tegrapol 21
Grinder-polisher for ultimate flatness and smoothness of SEM samples.

Krelltech NOVA
Optical polishing system for photonics. Capable of polishing hard optical materials such as sapphire.

Ion Polisher

Gatan PIPS ll
Precision ion polishing system for precise centering, control, and reproducibility of milling processes.

COATERS

Leica ACE600
Coater for coating SEM and TEM samples. Sputtered platinum is a fast and easy solution for imaging insulating samples, whilst e-beam evaporated platinum and carbon allow ultra-high resolution imaging of charging samples. Thin carbon layers are also used for EDX analysis of non-conductive samples.

ULTRA SONIC BATH

Branson B200
For the cleaning of specimens or small instruments. The cleaner uses ultrasonic energy (40 kHz) in the form of sound waves to create millions of tiny microscopic bubbles in the solution that even works their way into holes and hidden cavities.