If your ceramic is porous, you certainly will have problems with cutting/polishing (otherwise I would recommend polishing after cutting). You can try fracture. Try to make acquisition on relatively flat areas. Mapping is the worst possible way to study diffusion, but could be useful for metal infiltrated in pores. For diffusion I prefer line scans or (even better) spot analysis – much more sensitive and less prone to artifacts method. Bear in mind you cannot resolve diffusion effects with EDS of bulk specimens on distances less than 2 microns for ceramics unless you are using low voltage EDS (something around or less than 5-7 kV).

Dear Vladimir,

Thank you very much for your comment. Actually, the porosity of my ceramic is quite low (relative density is around 98-99%). So, I could prepare samples for SEM/EDS by cutting followed by polishing, without breaking the samples. However, even after polishing, there are still some unexpected metal particles (which is drifted to ceramic domain by cutting, not by diffusion/infiltration) in the ceramic domain. This can effect on the accuracy of EDS analysis. Therefore, I am looking for way to clean my cross-sectional sample before performing EDS.

I never worked with ceramic materials before, so I don't know if my suggestion is helpful or not. If you are looking for a way to clean your cross-sectional sample after cutting and before performing EDS can't you just make a mild ultrasonication or normal rinsing in either distilled water (if using acetone, ethanol you should rinse after with water again) - and drying in a nitrogen stream?

Dear Anca Mazare,

Thank you for your suggestion, I will try ultrasonication and drying as your comments and see how they can help to clean my sample.

Regards

May be you can cut your material with an ion beam like the cross section polisher for example.