Using the Focused Ion Beam to Perform Serial Sectioning of Micron-Sized Particles for Coordinated Nanoscale Analysis
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1089-Y04-05
Using the Focused Ion Beam to Perform Serial Sectioning of Micron-Sized Particles for Coordinated Nanoscale Analysis Nabil D. Bassim1,2, Bradley T. De Gregorio1, and Rhonda M. Stroud1 1 Nanoscale Materials Section, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, 20375 2 Nova Research Inc., Alexandria, VA, 22308 ABSTRACT Standard Focused Ion Beam (FIB) lift-out methods for production of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) thin sections destroy many cubic microns of material in order to produce a single 100-nm thick section. Microtome sectioning, in contrast, allows serial sectioning of adjacent multiple 100-nm sections, without loss of materials between sections, but lacks site specificity. In order to maximize the yield of analyzable material in thin section form from valuableone-of-a kind- micron-sized samples, we have developed serial sectioning techniques that combine FIB lift-out with microtomy. In this paper, we show an example of sectioning and subsequent TEM analysis of simulated cometary residues which resemble impact craters collected during the NASA Stardust Mission. These techniques may be generalized to any oneof-a-kind sample for which preserving analyzable volume is critical, such as forensic analysis of dust particles, failure analysis and electronic device sectioning. INTRODUCTION Current FIB-based TEM sample preparation techniques allow for excellent sitespecificity, but very limited types of serial sectioning [1]. The software packages now incorporated into most FIB-SEMs do include automated routines for serial ion beam milling and electron beam imaging. In these cases, microstructural changes can be observed through the thickness of a material volume (or voxel). When combined with energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) for chemical information, or electron backscatter detection (EBSD) for grain orientation, a full description of some complex material systems is possible. However, the spatial resolution of the chemical analyses is limited to ~ 100 nm, due the interaction volume of the electron beam. In addition, this technique is destructive since the voxel of interest is consumed during the experiment. For one-of-a-kind samples and those with feature size
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