MVLscope WHY THIS MATTERS
SAMPLE PREPARATION · TEM · INTERACTIVE WORKFLOW
Make a window for electrons
TEM / FIB sample preparation
Opening the preparation workbench… The outline and sources below remain available.
The preparation workbench
The labelled diagram works without 3D.
What the evidence shows
Connect preparation to the instrument.
These links open separate instrument lessons. This virtual specimen and its notebook remain here; they are not transferred into another simulator.
INSPECTION NOTEBOOK
Keep the preparation with the evidence.
Each checkpoint keeps its picture, settings and preparation history. A new virtual specimen preserves your saved comparisons.
Inspect and keep a checkpoint to begin.
Make a window for electrons · MVLscope · Constructed preparation model v1 · https://mvlscope.com/learn/tem-preparation
Workflow outline & learning goals
Find the target before removing material
The transparent solid is a teaching reveal of known geometry. Real targeting needs independent location evidence and registration to the instrument. A cross-section has both a position and an orientation. The final image integrates a finite thickness along its normal; a narrow-looking feature need not be isolated in depth.
Protect the surface information
Protection is part of the preparation history. Its deposition method and compatibility depend on the specimen and the information to preserve. The unprotected option deliberately creates a comparison with greater authored surface disruption. A cap is not a promise of an undamaged specimen.
Make room around the lamella
Milling removes material around a selected region. The retained slab may still be too thick for the intended transmission experiment. Restricted access here adds an illustrative redeposition/curtaining concern. The model does not calculate sputtering, ion trajectories, milling rates, or a safe instrument setting.
Transfer the target onto a support
In this teaching sequence a manipulator takes the chunk out, and the lamella is then attached to a TEM support grid. Lift-out and attachment are separate steps. The support provides a way to handle the specimen while leaving a window for transmission. Moving a chunk does not repair missed targeting or milling damage.
Thin around the information you need
A thinner slab contains less material along the beam, but also less of the original target. One-sided removal can move the surviving window away from it. The clean comparison removes an extra 20 nm in this authored geometry and reduces the displayed surface-damage concern. That number is not a FIB recipe, a measured damage depth, or a universal cleaning allowance. A suitable thickness depends on material, beam energy, imaging or analysis mode, and the question. Electron transparency alone does not establish representative or damage-free structure.
Read a projection with its preparation history
This is an exact geometric line integral through synthetic ellipsoids, displayed as illustrative material-path contrast. It is not a calculation of TEM intensity, phase, diffraction, atomic resolution, or chemistry. Use the retained-target result, original positions, thickness and damage history together. A clean-looking image can omit the target or combine structures at different depths. Compare fresh replicas with one decision changed. An earlier station reviews this replica; it cannot put removed material back.
Model limits & scientific sources
Synthetic nanoscale solid. This is an independent specimen, not the materialography specimen magnified or transferred into TEM.
Slab intersections, retained volume and projected path lengths are calculated. Surface damage, curtaining and cleaning outcomes are authored scenarios, not material predictions.
The colored target and transparent parent solid reveal model ground truth. They are not information supplied automatically by SEM or TEM.
No universal transparency thickness is specified. No beam energy, dose, current, milling time, physical damage depth or preparation recipe is inferred.
The projection omits diffraction, phase contrast, multiple scattering, beam damage during imaging and chemical identification. It does not establish representativeness of the bulk.