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This book is aimed at the entire scientific community (solid state physics, chemistry, earth sciences, and live sciences), to those who use transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to analyze structure in relation to the properties and specific functions of materials. This work is essentially dedicated to the recommended methodology for beginning the preparation of a sample for the TEM. In particular...
Natural materials such as organic matter, mineral matter, and living matter, along with artificial materials produced industrially, make up all of the materials found on the Earth. They all have a chemical composition and particular structure that give them specific properties or functions in relation to their surroundings or their formation conditions.
Electron microscopy constitutes a key technique for characterizing materials because of its various imaging and spectrometry options. Depending on the scale and nature of the information desired (topographical, morphological, structural, and/or chemical), either scanning and/or transmission electron microscopy is used.
Characterizing a material’s microstructure comes down to determining the morphological, textural, structural, and chemical parameters of this material. To respond to a problem presented by a given material, it is necessary to define the pertinent scale for investigating its microstructure. Before beginning a microstructure investigation using transmission electron microscopy, one must first determine...
Microstructural investigations of materials using transmission electron microscopy involve two constraints due to the illumination source. Electrons displace only in a high vacuum, and even when highly accelerated, they transit only a very small material thickness. The sample preparation should resolve both of these issues: the sample must be stable under vacuum and it must be very thin (on the order...
An artifact is damage caused by a preparation technique and can easily be confused with the sample’s microstructure. Artifacts can be due to mechanical, chemical, ionic, or physical action. During TEM observation, especially in a TEM/STEM, other artifacts may be produced due to irradiation under the electron beam.
The best choice of preparation technique is the one that produces a suitable thin slice of the material to be investigated. The technique must also be suitable for the different TEM analyses and should contain a minimum of artifacts.
Given the different nature of the artifacts and drawbacks induced by mechanical, chemical, or ionic techniques, or even those involving changes in physical state, it is important to combine several techniques in order to confirm the intrinsic structure of a given material. The combination of techniques can vary, depending on the different properties of materials, their physical or chemical state,...
The act of preparing each sample, as well as observing it in the TEM, subjects the material to various stresses. Each sample contains both intrinsic defects, giving the material its particular properties to be studied, and extrinsic defects, which are associated with the different stages in its history (i.e., from its preparation to its observation in the TEM). After passing under the microscope,...
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