Site Specific TEM Analysis of Micrometer-Sized Particles with the FIB Lift-Out Technique

Abstract

The focused ion beam (FIB) instrument offers an efficient and reproducible approach for obtaining electron transparent membranes of uniform thickness for TEM analysis. Thus, the use of the FIB to investigate numerous types of materials has grown tremendously recently. Prenitzer et al. demonstrated the ability to acquire TEM specimens from individual Zn powder particles using the FIB lift-out (LO) specimen preparation technique. The 10 μm × 100 μm Zn powders particles were larger than the 5 μrn x 20 μm FIB LO specimen and therefore the LO technique could be directly applied to an individual powder particle. This paper will discuss a novel approach for the preparation of site specific micrometer-sized particles for TEM analysis using the FIB LO technique. The uniqueness of the technique described herein is that site specific TEM LO specimens may be obtained from regions which are smaller than the conventional dimensions of the LO specimen.