Preparation of TEM Specimens of Rubber Modified Polymeric Materials by Ultramicrotomy and OsO₄ Staining

Abstract

This paper presents the specimen preparation approaches developed to image rubber(butadiene) - modified epoxy polymeric materials used in the microelectronics industry by TEM. The methodology is complicated by the fact that silica and calcium carbonate (>75 wt%) are used as filler materials while the rubber is used as a toughening agent in the samples investigated.

Influence of material properties on TEM specimen preparation of thin films

“…After Wetzel and Kavanagh (1990). chemicals for staining features (Yegnasubramanian, 1990), and (3) using markers to help define the breaking point of glass substrates (Becker and Bange, 1993).…”