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Journal of Electron Microscopy Advance Access originally published online on September 24, 2008
Journal of Electron Microscopy 2008 57(6):175-179; doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfn018
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Microscopy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Comparison of TEM specimen preparation of perovskite thin films by tripod polishing and conventional ion milling

Espen Eberg1, Åsmund F. Monsen2, Thomas Tybell1,3, Antonius T. J. van Helvoort2 and Randi Holmestad2,*

1 Department of Electronics and Telecommunications
2 Department of Physics
3 NTNU Nanolab, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: randi.holmestad{at}ntnu.no

In this article, the effects of the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) specimen preparation techniques, such as ion milling and tripod polishing on perovskite oxides for high-resolution TEM investigation, are compared. Conventional and liquid nitrogen cooled ion milling induce a new domain orientation in thin films of SrRuO3 and LaFeO3 grown on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 substrates. This is not observed in tripod-polished specimens. Different ion milling rates for thin films and substrates in cross-section specimens lead to artefacts in the interface region, degrading the specimen quality. This is illustrated by SrRuO3 and PbTiO3 thin films grown on (001)-oriented SrTiO3. By applying tripod polishing and gentle low-angle, low-energy ion milling while cooling the sample, the effects from specimen preparation are reduced resulting in higher quality of the TEM study. In the process of making face-to-face cross-section specimens by tripod polishing, it is crucial that the glue layer attaching the slabs of material is very thin (<50 nm).

Keywords     specimen preparation, tripod, perovskite, HRTEM

Received     17 June 2008, accepted 22 August 2008


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