Site-specific Transmission Electron Microscope Characterization of Micrometer-sized Particles Using the Focused Ion Beam Lift-out Technique

Micrometer sized particles have been studied to show that a high-quality transmission electron microscope (TEM) specimen can be produced, without the use of embedding media, from a site-specific region of chosen particles using the focused ion beam (FIB) lift-out (LO) technique. The uniqueness of this technique is that site-specific TEM LO specimens may be obtained from particles and from regions which are smaller than the conventional approximately 10-20 &mgr;m x 5 &mgr;m x approximately 0.1 &mgr;m dimensions of the LO specimen. The innovative FIB LO procedures are described in detail and TEM images of electron transparent specimens obtained from specific micrometer-sized particles are presented.