Recent Advances in Specimen Preparation for the Materials Sciences

We have successfully applied novel techniques to prepare specimens suitable for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) from two materials systems. Chemical fixation and ultramicrotomy, normally used in the biological sciences, were used to prepare specimens from modified natural rubber latex particles. Site-specific tripod polishing, normally used for semiconductor devices, was used to prepare cross-sectional specimens through the core of an optical fibre. The future development of these two materials is contingent in being able to study their internal microstructures and elemental distributions and the new specimen preparation methods developed here will play an important role in that development.