New specimen preparation methods for materials transmission electron microscopy using ion-milling

Three mew preparation methods of specimen for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) applicable to materials characterization have developed using ion milling. One is an ion-digging method, where diamond powder particles are dispersed on the surface of specimen such as multilayer heterostructure and then the specimen are bombarded gy Ar ions perpendicular to its surface. Narrow poles with a diamond particle at the top form by ion digging, and can be observed in the surface profile by TEM. This method does not need the adhesion of two sliced substances and the mechanical polishing, which are troublesome pre-treatments used in conventional method. The others are preparation methods of selactions of powder particles, using photo-resistor Ni(P) elestroless plating for embedding the particles. These methods allow high-resolution TEM observations of micrometr-sized particles.