Journal of Electron Microscopy Advance Access originally published online on March 3, 2008
Journal of Electron Microscopy 2008 57(3):91-94; doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfn004
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Preparation of TEM samples of ferritic alloys
1 Department of Materials, University of Oxford, Parks Rd., Oxford OX1 3PH, UK
2 Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zhongwen.yao{at}materials.ox.ac.uk
We describe techniques for electropolishing irradiated ferritic specimens for examination under the TEM in situations where the foil quality is of utmost importance. First, we describe some modifications to the standard technique for making plan-view specimens aimed at optimizing the foil quality. Second, we describe a technique for making plan-view specimens from a region of buried damage in a specimen irradiated with 2 MeV Fe+ ions.
Keywords TEM sample preparation, electropolishing, Fe, Fe–Cr alloys, ferritic–martensitic steels
Received 20 November 2007, accepted 7 February 2008