Does anyone out there have the JEOL airlock plasma cleaner?
I'm curious: is it a problem when you have a large area of epoxy surrounding a sample? One, does it remove the carbon coat on the epoxy and hence make the epoxy non-conductive again, and two, does it end up depositing some hydrocarbons from the epoxy on the sample surface?
We are getting one installed in January... I'll let you know how it works out! I am worried that the plasma cleaner will remove my carbon coating!
-Dan
Quote from: Dan Ruscitto on December 22, 2015, 06:43:07 AM
We are getting one installed in January... I'll let you know how it works out! I am worried that the plasma cleaner will remove my carbon coating!
-Dan
Hi Dan,
Cool.
Yes, exactly my worry as well.
I still would like to see an "in situ" spot cleaner that can be run just prior to each acquisition to clean only a 100 um (or so) area under the beam. We really don't need to clean the entire sample after all!
I'm especially worried for my standard block over time. I anticipate that I will only use this for larger samples and I can use the bench top cleaner we have for smaller samples that will go in with the standard block. I HOPE that it will help cut down on hydrocarbon contamination issues we are having -- I'll keep you updated.
-Dan
Quote from: Dan Ruscitto on December 22, 2015, 01:04:56 PM
I'm especially worried for my standard block over time. I anticipate that I will only use this for larger samples and I can use the bench top cleaner we have for smaller samples that will go in with the standard block. I HOPE that it will help cut down on hydrocarbon contamination issues we are having -- I'll keep you updated.
-Dan
I also worry about epoxy getting mobilized and re-deposited elsewhere on the samples during the airlock plasma cleaning. Do they recommend *not* cleaning epoxy mounted materials using this method?