Sample Preparation

Facilities

2 Chemical labs:
– Osmium coating, Tenupol electropolishing and Chemical etching lab
– Resin infiltration-embedding lab

2 Preparation labs:
– Mechanical preparations lab
– Ionic preparation lab

1 Coating lab:
– Carbon coating
– Gold coating
– Gold/palladium coating
– Iridium coating
– Other metal coating as chromium, copper, platinum, … can be done: these metal targets are not part of the CIME equipment, therefore should be provided by the one who needs it
– (Osmium coating  is done in chemical lab)

1 Cryo EM lab:
– Sample preparation for cryo EM (automatic mode with Vitrobot Mark IV, manual mode with Guillotine)
– Sample preparation for negative stain (delimitated area for uranium staining use)

TEM-SEM Samples Preparation

Samples preparation is a fundamental step for TEM (SEM) observation. The choice of the appropriate technique depends on several parameters: material properties, analysis to be done, artefact induced by a technique with regards to the type of analysis needed .
Many preparation techniques are covered at CIME, for almost any kind of material.
Some of the TEM techniques described below can be partially or totally applied for SEM surface preparation, as well as for AFM technique (mechanical polishing, ultramicrotomy, cleavage, ion milling,…)


Mechanical techniques
Ionic techniques
Chemical technique
Electrochemical technique
Mechanical-physical techniques

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) : Sample preparation guide

Microscopie electronique en transmission (MET) : Guide de preparation des echantillons

Coating

Coating is needed for TEM or SEM observation of insulating samples or for specimens embedded in a non conductive resin.
The choice of coating chemical element(s) depends mainly on the type of analyse to be done (high resolution, EDX, EBSD,…).

Carbon coating
Gold coating
Gold/palladium coating
Iridium coating
Other metal coating
Osmium coating