JEOL Airlock Plasma Cleaner

[Probeman]

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?

[Dan R]

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

[Probeman]

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!

[Dan R]

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

[Probeman]

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?