Plasma CleanER / Plasma Asher: SEM, TEM, Microscopy
Our low cost benchtop plasma ashers / plasma cleaners for SEM & TEM sample holders are designed specifically for fast and efficient cleaning.
The plasma ckleaner / plasma asher is fuly automated. The plasma cleaning process takes approximately 15 minutes and removes all organic elements such as grease, oil and carbon black. The sources of errors inside the SEM and TEM are clearly reduced with oxygen plasma clean and the dwell time during the measurement is significantly increased.
Normally oxygen is used as process gas but for oxidation sensitive parts hydrogen can be used.
Plasma cleaning was first applied to TEM and SEM in the eighties to overcome difficulties associated with the detection of asbestos. In that specific application the carbon compounds are 'ashed' in a so called plasma asher. The pure fibres are then easy to analyse with TEM.
Plasma cleaning / plasma ashing is also very useful for general polymer analysis. It is possible to uncover for example glassfibres and other inorganic fillers. Also for failure analysis in ceramic technology, Si3N4 samples are first plasma etched prior to analysis.
SEM /TEM Plasma Cleaner / Plasma Asher
The 'Femto' plasma cleaner / plasma asher is an application specific solution for low pressure plasma cleaning and preparation of electron microscopy samples, including:
- two chamber sizes- all glass chambers
- external feed of SEM TEM sample holder
- very simple instrument control