Measuring mechanical properties of thin coatings requires measurements of samples with similar dimensions as the thickness of the coating – typically a few microns. Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) is an ideal technique to prepare site-specific pillars for micro-compression testing. The new TESCAN S8000G FIB-SEM system is equipped with the high-performance Orage™ Ga FIB column that can achieve ion beam currents up to 100 nA for rapid milling while the batch processing capability of the DrawBeam Advanced software module allows fully automatic preparation of large arrays of identical pillars.
-
- (Left) DrawBeam Advanced interface showing batch-processing of a pillar array. (Right) 5 × 5 array of micro-compression pillars prepared in less than 3 hours