Science Lab

The knowledge portal of Leica Microsystems offers scientific research and teaching material on the subjects of microscopy. The content is designed to support beginners, experienced practitioners and scientists alike in their everyday work and experiments. Explore interactive tutorials and application notes, discover the basics of microscopy as well as high-end technologies – become part of the Science Lab community and share your expertise!

Preparation of an IC-chip cross section: grinding and polishing of the chip cross section.

Cross-section Analysis for Electronics Manufacturing

Cross-section analysis for electronics concerning quality control and failure analysis of printed circuit boards (PCBs) and assemblies (PCBAs), integrated circuits (ICs), etc. are described in this…

EBSD grain size distribution of the cross section of a gold wire within a silicon matrix from inside a CPU (central processing unit of a computer). The grains are highlighted with arbitrary colors.

High-Quality EBSD Sample Preparation

This article describes a method for EBSD sample preparation of challenging materials. The high-quality samples required for electron backscatter diffraction are prepared with broad ion-beam milling.

SEM image of the full Li-NMC electrode sample, showing the two porous layers and the metal film at the center of the structure.

Cross Section Ion Beam Milling of Battery Components

Sample Preparation of Lithium battery systems requires high quality surface preparation to evaluate their internal structure and morphology. Due to the brittle materials involved, preparing pristine…

Introduction to Ion Beam Etching with the EM TIC 3X

In this article you can learn how to optimize the preparation quality of your samples by using the ion beam etching method with the EM TIC 3X ion beam milling machine. A short introduction of the…

Studying the Microstructure of Natural Polymers in Fine Detail

The potential of cryogenic broad ion beam milling used in combination with scanning electron microscopy (cryo-BIB-SEM) for imaging and analyzing the microstructure of cryogenically stabilized soft…

Practical Applications of Broad Ion Beam Milling

Mechanical polishing can be time consuming and frustrating. It can also introduce unwanted artifacts when preparing cross-sectioned samples for electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) in the scanning…

Porous Ceramics - Sample Preparation for SEM

Application Note for Leica EM RES102 - Ceramic membrane filters with pore sizes down to a few nanometres must be investigated in cross-section with regard to the structure of the pores. The smallest…

Paper Samples - Sample Preparation for SEM

Application Note for Leica EM RES102 - A coated paper sample has been prepared with ion beam slope cutting in order to test the procedure with regard to its applicability. With the use of ion beam…

Ion Beam Polishing of Sample Surfaces - Sample Preparation for SEM

Application Note for Leica EM RES102 - Ion milling can be used to reduce the roughness of sample surfaces. Small angles less than 6° with respect to the sample surface are necessary. The high voltage…