Metallographic Preparation

Sampling:
Precision Cut-off machine 300 – 5000 U/min;
Wire-saw and diamond wire-saw in inert atmosphere

Mounting:
hot mounting press
equipment for cold mounting and vacuum impregnation
cold mounting, conductive resins containing Ag, Ni, Cu or graphite for SEM applications

Grinding and Polishing:
semi-automatic grinding and polishing machines with specimen movers and dosing system
Precision lapping and polishing machine (PM5) for preparation of crystallographically defined surfaces of single crystals.
Ion-beam echting apparatus (MetEtch, Gatan)

Preparation of air- and water-sensitive samples:
Ethanol-based libricants and suspensions with abrasives are used for the metallographic preparation or less reactive samples.
Highly senstive materials are handled in a glove -box under intert argon atmosphere. These samples are cold mounted in silver containing epoxy resin which is suitable for SEM and microprobe applications. Normally, surfaces smaller than 1 cm^² can be prepared either without lubricants or with oil- or hexane-based liquids. SiC-papers and diamond powder with 3 µm or smaller grain size are used as abrasive materials.

Light-optical Microsopy
innvers microscopes for brightfield, darkfield and polarised light contrast
Material microscope for reflected and transmitted light applications with brightfild, darkfield, polarised light and Nomarski contrast
Laser-Scanning-Microscope
Vickers micro hardness tester (0.005 N < q < 4 N
Hot stage for light optical microscopy (-100°C < T < 1500°C).
Digitale Imaging
Determination of phase contents and grain size distributions using digitale image processing software (AnalySIS, Olympus)

Density determination
Helium gas-pycnometer for the determination of the macroscopic density of bulk or powdered samples (max. volume 1cm^³ , AccuPyc 1330, Micromeritics), density determination of air- and water- sensitive solids