Introduction

The standard SEM stubs used in an SEM are mostly made from aluminum and sometimes brass. This is fine for many applications if the sample is large and can be mounted directly of the stub. However, for small samples, powders, particles in solutions and fibers the material of the stub can interfere with backscattered electron imaging or X-ray micro-analysis. To avoid such interference, it is better to mount the sample on an EM-Tec high purity carbon (graphite) specimen stub. The high purity graphitised carbon, which is used for the EM-tec carbon SEM stubs, contains less than 2ppm impurities with 1ppm or less for each single element. The impurities can be B, Mg, Al, Si, Ca or Fe. The available carbon SEM specimen mounts are:

Ø12.7mm standard pin stub
Ø15mm Hitachi mount with M4 threaded hole
Ø25mm Hitachi mount with M4 threaded hole