Development of a hot-stage for a Scanning Electron Microscope

Internal view of a sample placed inside a SEM

Description

This project involves the design of an in-situ sample heating element to be placed inside a Scanning Electron Microscope chamber in order to allow the evaluation of microstructural changes during the heating of a sample.

The design will be constrained to fit within the SEM chamber and to not interfere with the operation of the SEM. Temperature ranges to be applied to the sample range from room temperature to 900 °C. The system must also facilitate the control of both heating and cooling rate to allow temperature profiling to be achieved.

This system will be used in conjunction with Electron Backscatter Diffraction; a technique used in materials science to study the crystallographic orientation and microstructure of materials at the microscopic level.

Key skills/interests:

Electronics design, control systems, materials science.

Expected outputs:

1x MSc (Eng), 1x Journal/Conference paper in a leading publication.

Supervisors:

James Hepworth and Sarah George