Scalable substrate development for aqueous sample preparation for atom probe tomography
Author(s)
Woods, Eric V
Kim, Se-Ho
El-Zoka, Ayman A
Stephenson, LT
Gault, B
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reliable and consistent preparation of atom probe tomography (APT) specimens from aqueous and hydrated biological specimens remains a significant challenge. One particularly difficult process step is the use of a focused ion beam (FIB) instrument for preparing the required needle-shaped specimen, typically involving a 'lift-out' procedure of a small sample of material. Here, two alternative substrate designs are introduced that enable using FIB only for sharpening, along with example APT datasets. The first design is a laser-cut FIB-style half-grid close to those used for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) that can be used in a grid holder compatible with APT pucks. The second design is a larger, standalone self-supporting substrate called a 'crown', with several specimen positions, which self-aligns in APT pucks, prepared by electrical discharge machining (EDM). Both designs are made nanoporous, to provide strength to the liquid-substrate interface, using chemical and vacuum dealloying. Alpha brass, a simple, widely available, lower-cost alternative to previously proposed substrates, was selected for this work. The resulting designs and APT data are presented and suggestions are provided to help drive wider community adoption.
Date Issued
2025-08-01
Date Acceptance
2023-12-15
Citation
Journal of Microscopy, 2025, 299 (2), pp.104-117
ISSN
0022-2720
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
104
End Page
117
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Microscopy
Volume
299
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Authors. Journal of Microscopy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Microscopical Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38115688
Subjects
atom probe tomohraphy
cryo-atom probe tomography
cryo-FIB
specimen preparation
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Date Publish Online
2023-12-19