TESCAN AMBER X Plasma Focussed Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscope

Instrument Overview:

The xenon plasma source achieves higher beam currents than conventional gallium liquid metal source FIB. This results in an order-of-magnitude improvement in milling rates, and thus allows for high-speed / large-area cross-sectioning and large volume 3D tomography applications.

The xenon plasma source also allows for gallium-free sample preparation using inert xenon ions, which facilitates contamination-free preparation of samples which may be susceptible to alteration or contamination by conventional gallium FIB processing.

A range of electron detectors allow for high resolution imaging, and simultaneous acquisition of topographic and compositional contrast. A dedicated SEM-STEM detector allows ultra-high resolution imaging of electron transparent samples in Bright Field, Dark Field and High Angle Annular Dark Field imaging modes.

Complementary analytics in the form of EBSD and EDX detectors allow for the acquisition of compositional (elemental composition) and crystallographic (phase distribution, crystallographic orientation, grain size and morphology) information respectively. Used in conjunction with FIB-SEM tomography, these analytics allow for in-situ, static, 3D EBSD and EDX analysis of large 3D volumes representative of bulk material.

This instrument is also equipped with Pt and C gas injection systems (GIS) for deposition of protective layers, a rotatable micro-manipulator needle for lift-out or manipulation of test pieces, and a rocking stage which can be used in conjunction with TESCAN’s TRUE X-sectioning method to reduce curtaining and ‘waterfall’ effects, thus improving the quality of surface finish.