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Ultramicrotomy for Materials Science

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Abstract

Diamond knife sectioning, or ultramicrotomy, is being used increasingly as an attractive alternative or complimentary means of producing quality TEM specimens. This paper represents a first attempt to provide a basic methodology for this technique for materials scientists, point out its drawbacks, provide a comprehensive listing of more than three decades of widely-scattered and ingeneous applications, and illustrate the diversity of these applications with clear examples. Suggestions will be made for further improvements in ultramicrotomy so that it can be applied in a more routine fashion to modern advanced materials or TEM applications involving demanding chemical microanalysis.

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Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Alcan management for permission to publish some of the results contained in this review, and M. Ball and P. Nolan (Alcan) and G. Wiliams (Metals Technology Labs) for extensive discussions and assistance in specimen sectioning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Metals Technology Laboratories, CANMET, 568 Booth St, Ottawa, Canada, K1A OG1

    T. F. Malis

  2. Alcan International Ltd, Kingston R & D Center Box, 8400 Kingston, Ontario, K71 4Z4, Canada

    D. Steele

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Malis, T.F., Steele, D. Ultramicrotomy for Materials Science. MRS Online Proceedings Library 199, 3–41 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-199-3

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