Specimen Preparation

Abstract

Because atom probe requires the feature of interest to be positioned near the apex of a sharp needle-shaped tip, specimen preparation is an essential, and often extremely challenging, part of any experiment. Recent developments in instrumentation for atom probe microscopy, such as laser-pulsing and the use of wide-field-of-view detectors, have overcome many of the limitations on the types of materials and microstructures that may be studied. Now, more than ever, it is the difficulty of preparing specimens from materials of unusual geometry and/or from site-specific regions that is the limiting factor, and this is particularly so for non-metals. Related to this is the increasing need for highly reproducible techniques that allow statistically significant numbers of site-specific specimens to be fabricated, enabling better quantification and reliability of the subsequent analyses.