Physical and Chemical Characterization of Interfaces by Electron Optical Methods

Although the study of ceramics using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) lagged behind metallurgy because of specimen preparation difficulties and because many ceramics are ionisation sensitive to 100kV electron beams, today there is considerable research activity. This is due to perfection of ion thinning methods (first devised by Castaing in the early 1950’s actually for metals) and improvements in instrumentation, particularly high voltage, high resolution and analytical microscopes. These developments and many applications have been summarized recently(1) and will not be given in any more detail in this review. However, it is important not to underestimate the severe problems of specimen preparation methods for ceramic materials.