I am doing a study on void contents within Carbon Fiber Composites. What are the preparations needed needed to be done to the test specimens before i can do microscopy via microscopes and SEM?
Main area of focus is the cross sectional area of the test piece which is cut with the use of a water jet cutter.
After cutting the sample using Water Jet, you can do grinding and polishing properly. You should perform a careful cleaning of the surface using Ultrasonic cleaner to take out debris from the voids as it may introduce wrong data. After the prep, SEM can be used to do the microscopy. To quantify the void contents, you can analyze the SEM images by free software like ImageJ. Hope this helps. If you need any information, please let me know.
Happy Researching!
Problem is that your water jet cutting may already introduce artefacts, by breaking off parts of the sample and depositing debris in pores. I think the most reliable way to get an answer is to put the sample into a FIB-SEM and perform serial block face sectioning (cutting away layer-by-layer and performing a tomographic reconstruction of the volume), from which you can get the 3D structure, including porosity.
Would these samples normally be hydrated?
We look at cells in artificial composites using CryoSEM with fracture. If you have access to the kit you can go from sample to imaging within 25 minutes. Air spaces are perfectly preserved.
another group here look at oils in composites and again find cryo with random fracture works well.
if samples are normally dry in nature I've seen great results with FIB-SEM as Thomas mentioned above with no prior processing and doing BSD imaging. I would not do any cutting outside the SEM.
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