Robotic fabrication of high-quality lamellae for aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy.

ABSTRACT: Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is widely used for atomic-level imaging of materials but severely requires damage-free and thin samples (lamellae). So far, the preparation of the high-quality lamella from a bulk largely depends on manual processes by a skilled operator. This limits the throughput and repeatability of aberration-corrected STEM experiments. Here, inspired by the recent successes of "robot scientists", we demonstrate robotic fabrication of high-quality lamellae by focused-ion-beam (FIB) with automation software. First, we show that the robotic FIB can prepare lamellae with a high success rate, where the FIB system automatically controls rough-milling, lift-out, and final-thinning processes. Then, we systematically optimized the FIB parame

SUBMITTER: Tsurusawa H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8566590 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature