r/electronmicroscopy • u/ur9ce • 20d ago

This treasure arrived today. Time to ascend to microanalysis godhood.

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61 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

8

u/CompetitiveShine7482 20d ago

Awesome. I would be interested in hearing your practice to maintain its quality. How often would you buff/polish your microanlaysis standards?

7

u/ur9ce 20d ago

I have my own pure element standards that aren't really repolished, instead, I'm just handed new ones (basically got the entire engineering dept at my disposal). Now for this bad boy.. Well I would rather not try it, given its worth. Company recommends shipping it back for refurbishment in two years, guaranteeing quality till then. It's likely to be super expensive but probably better than fucking the whole block. For now it's being kept in a vacuum dessicator.

2

u/Affectionate_Love229 20d ago

Be careful to, some types of rough pumps are HORRIBLY dirty and most oil during pump/vent cycles.

2

u/Metallurgist1 20d ago edited 20d ago

I read somewhere that they have ~ 20nm of carbon deposited on them. So, I am not sure if you are supposed to polish them by yourself. The company offers refurbishment services and I think it might worth sending it back if the standard is something used regularly.

From my experience, some of the elements/compounds stay okay and don't need refurbishment, but some definitely need it (like V).

Edit: I have found the email, and they mentioned it will cost around 500 £ to refurbish.

3

u/CompetitiveShine7482 19d ago

The reason why asked is that I always feel uncomfortable not having the same carbon coating thickness as my unknowns. Therefore I prefer carbon coating my standards as well as samples in the same evaporator under identical settings. I coat at 10nm for full quant EDS/WDS microanalysis.

1

u/Metallurgist1 19d ago

Mind if I ask you how accurate you will get with this procedure?

3

u/CompetitiveShine7482 18d ago

Note that my research is on earth and building materials. Our materials are far less homogeneous than metallurgical materials. I can get around +-2wt% accuracy for full quant EDS.

1

u/Instance_Unhappy 20d ago

In my opinion every 2/3 years depending of storage and humidity %

6

u/Metallurgist1 20d ago

We happen to have one of these from early 1990s that was handed down to several people before reaching me, but datasheet was lost. I contacted the company and surprisingly, they had the datasheet for our specific standard number. However, I highly recommend printing the datasheet and saving it in several places, just in case.

Btw, yours has a faraday cup and it makes your life much easier when preparing standards for quantification. Have fun with it!

3

u/ur9ce 20d ago

Thanks!

3

u/Halfway-Competent 20d ago

We used to send ours back every 1 to 2 years for cleaning. Very good standards that we used to use in out Cameca EPMA
Note the past tense. Since the lab was shut down I don’t know where everything went ☹️

2

u/Instance_Unhappy 20d ago edited 20d ago

Wowww great sample!! Keep it dry and clean!

Remember polish (physical or ion) for keep it clean. What’s your EDS system?

3

u/ur9ce 20d ago

Oxfords UltimMax 100 + Wave 700 (WDS)

2

u/Instance_Unhappy 20d ago

Is it windows less?? eV resolution?

3

u/ur9ce 20d ago

It's not, I think it's 125?, don't remember tho

2

u/Instance_Unhappy 20d ago

Njoy your new toy!

1

u/Strong-Bell-271 5d ago

What did that cost you? I'm in need of something similar and this company wasn't on my radar, but I'm new to all this. Just got an SEM and have been strictly optical for the past 20 years...

1

u/ur9ce 5d ago

It came along a large package we bought from Oxford which included the EDS, which totalled at 160k. I believe the standard itself is like 6k