Environmental scanning electron microscope with nanoindentation capabilities

Following a market survey of environmental scanning electron microscopy as well as nanoindenters, we have found the described procurement to be the only product fulfilling our minimum requirements, that is a combination of state-of-the-art environmental electron microscopy imaging capabilities, very high strain-rate indentation testing, and a unique indentation load range with an extremely low stress noise floor. In combination, this instrument enables measurements of both hard and soft materials under realistic atmospheric and mechanical conditions. Specifically, the following parts of the instrument are unique to this product: Scanning electron microscope equipped with environmental capabilities in combination with a field emission gun. The Thermo Fisher Quattro S system is a state-of-the-art environmental scanning electron microscope (ESEM), which combines the ability to achieve high vacuum (<6⋅10-4 Pa) with the ability to reach unprecedentedly high water vapor pressures up to 4000 Pa within the same ESEM chamber. Such high-water vapor is a unique feature of the Thermo Fisher Quattro system and will allow the measurements of biologically relevant samples without risk of drying them out. Furthermore, the Quattro system is the only scanning electron miscroscope system on the market which combine a high-water vapour pressures (≥1000 Pa H2O) with a field emission gun, thereby achieving unprecedented high resolution (down to 1.3 nm resolution under ESEM conditions) together with environmental capabilities in a single instrument. Ultra-low-load and very high strain rate nanoindentation. As a part of the Thermo Fisher Quattro S system, two pieces of nanoindentation equipment will be supplied to the ESEM solution. Both are directly capable of being installed within the acquired ESEM solution. These pieces are a Femtotools FT-NMT04 nanoindenter (FT) and an Alemnis Standard Assembly (ASA), respectively, each representing unique parts of the total instrument, consisting of the ESEM together with the nanoindentation capabilities. In detail, the FT device has displacement control in a unique force range from 0.5⋅10-9 to 2 N load allowed by the unique microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) indentation chip. This allows the exploration of both hard (e.g. inorganic glasses) as well as soft materials with displacement noise floors of <50 ⋅10-12 m in the entire load range. Further, the FT device’s load cell has a unique high mechanical stiffness with an internal resonance greatly exceeding 1000 Hz, thereby eliminating interference problems when performing dynamical loading procedures (oscillating forces superimposed onto a linear loading procedure). The combined setup will also feature an Alemnis Standard Assembly (ASA) system equipped with a large force range with capabilities of reaching loads up to 4 N. Furthermore, the ASA setup exceeds the maximum strain-rate capabilities of any other vendor on the market, enabling tests from quasistatic conditions (<0.001 s⁻¹) up to 1,000 s⁻¹, and dynamic frequency up to 1000 Hz. This allows mimicking real-world impact which is critical e.g. in our inorganic glass research. Further, the ASA setup has a wide range of capabilities of operating both in the vacuum and high-water vapour pressure in the ESEM, in ambient environments with equipped microscopy features, as well as in various beamline setups, including nanodiffraction and tomography, with vendor-equipped additions and the support for tips from external manufacturers as the tip is separated from the load cell. In combination, the nanoindenter-equipped ESEM offers the ability to reach a unique combination of extreme environmental conditions (up to 4000 Pa of water vapour ), very high resolution as enabled Page 3 of 4 by the field emission gun, an extremely large force range (from 0.5⋅10-9 to 4 N), and an extremely high strain rate (up to 1000 s-1), thereby being the only instrument available fulfilling our minimum requirement