When you mention Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy, typically people think that you mean
the instrument manufactured by ElectroScan. While the ElectroScan instruments was the only such
instrument available initially, there are now a range of similar instruments from a number of vendors.
The names that these instruments have been given vary, e.g. "Wet SEM" (Topcon), "Low Vacuum SEM" (JEOL)
"Variable Pressure SEM" (Hitachi) and "Environment-Controlled SEM" (Amray), however they all have the
capability of viewing the sample in an environment. Although performing SEM in an environment has an
interesting number of new applications, it also introduces a whole host of new possible problems for
the micrsocopist. Thankfully these can typically all be solved and the instruments are now powerful
tools in the SEM lab.
The University of Michigan Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory has been home to the Amoco Foundation
Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope for over five years now and it has been used for a wide range
of applications in both materials and biological sciences. There are a large number of different sample
stages for this instrument (hot, cold, straining, scratch test and diffraction) and as a result the
instrument is frequently used as a "microlaboratory", where all manner of in-situ experiments are performed.
John MansfieldÕs presentation will focus on the flexibility of the Environmental SEM, how the problems
associated with SEM in an environment are overcome and provide examples of applications in materials and
biological sciences.
Biography
John Mansfield attended the University of Bristol in Bristol England and earned a
B.Sc. in Chemical Physics in 1979, an M.Sc. in The Physics of Materials in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Physics in
1983. His graduate supervisor was Dr. John W. Steeds, and hence, his graduate studies involved extensive
use of electron microscopy.
Master's Thesis: A Microstructural Investigation of Au-Ge-Ni Contacts to InP.
Ph.D. Thesis: The Role of Boron in the Creep Ductility of 316 Stainless Steel.
After spending six months as a post-doctoral assistant at the University of Bristol
compiling the book
"Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction of Alloy Phases", he went to Argonne National Laboratory to work
with Nestor Zaluzec. After two and a half years at Argonne he became a Visiting Scientist at the
Microelectronics Center of North Carolina in Research Triangle Park, NC. He now is now the manager of
The University of Michigan Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
His interests include microchemical analysis of materials, convergent
beam electron diffraction (symmetry analysis and crystal structure determination),
diffraction pattern simulation, digital image and diffraction pattern acquisition and
processing and novel applications of the environmental scanning electron microscope.
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The University of Michigan Electron Microbeam Analysis Laboratory
&
The Department of Materials Science & Engineering
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