Analysis Research Service Center

Icon AFM incorporates the latest evolution of Bruker’s nanoscale imaging and characterization technologies on a large sample tip-scanning AFM platform. 

Please contact ARSC Staff to purchase consumables. Consumable costs are outside of the monthly project cap. Contact us at analysisrsc@txstate.edu if you have any questions.

The MetPrep 1x is a manual grinding/polishing/lapping station.  The system uses magnetic platens to easily switch between different abrasive grit sizes, diamond lapping films, or napp cloths.  Samples are typically mounted in epoxy before smoothing the exposed face.  This unit is used to prepare a polished surface on a specimen prior to optical or scanning electron microscopy.  In addition, we have a specialty wedge polisher jig that allows users to thin material to electron transparency for TEM analysis.

The Leica RES102 Argon polisher is used to carefully remove dielectric, semiconductor, or metallic material from a sample destined for analysis by electron microscopy (SEM or TEM). 

The HL5500PC is a high-performance Hall Effect Measurement System. It enables measurement of resistivity, carrier concentration and mobility on a wide range of semiconductors and with minimum effort in sample preparation.

Critical Point Dryer (CPD) is used for drying of biological samples such as pollen, tissue, plants, insects, as well as industrial samples, for Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis. Fully automated system, ensuring reproducible and controlled processes to ensure high sample quality with every run.

Cronus is a shielded semiautomatic probe station that allows for an exceptional noise floor for low level voltage/current and capacitance measurements.

The Quantum Design Physical Properties Measurement System (PPMS) represents a unique concept in laboratory equipment: an open architecture, variable temperature-field system, designed to perform a variety of automated measurements.

The Ellipsometer is used to analyze thin film structural and optical properties including thickness, segregation character of multicomponent films, and complex refractive indices.

The Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer utilizes broadband IR radiation to probe the vibrational modes of molecule in a liquid, powder, bulk, or thin film sample. 

Hermes mercury probe station has a specialized sample stage for probing the thin film reactance (L, C, R) of a material without a top contact.

The Hirox Digital Microscope allows for quick and easy, calibrated, high-precision, non-contact 2D and 3D measurements of your specimens over a broad magnification range.

The Quorum Technologies EMS150T ES is a versatile sputter coater/turbo evaporator for preparing specimens for examination by electron microscopy (EM). It is a combined system with interchangeable inserts for iridium sputter coating or carbon evaporation.

The Agilent 8900 is an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) used for high purity material and contaminant concentrations with detection limits in the parts per trillion.  This particular ICP-MS has three quadrupoles that ultimately determine the mass range of analyte molecules entering the detector. The second quadrupole is a special cell where up to 4 gases can be used in collision (He) or reaction (O2, H2, etc.) mode to further separate or create specific ions of interest.

Scanning Electron Microscopes raster a focused electron beam across the surface of a sample to generate grey scale images with resolution below what can be achieved with conventional light microscopes (20-50nm).  Our JEOL 6010 SEM can operate in high or low vacuum mode to accommodate samples that outgas (e.g. biological) and is equipped with a liquid nitrogen cold stage, Cathodoluminescence (CL) Spectrometer, and Electron Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) detector for elemental analysis.

The Leica EM UC7 Ultramicrotome equipped with the FC7 cryo-chamber attachment gives users the ability to collect either ultra-thin room temperature or cryo-sections for observation using electron, light, or atomic force microscopy.

The Leica Cryostat is a semi-motorized (motorized specimen feeding), high-performance cryostat with an option for motorized sectioning. It is used to freeze and section varying human specimen material quickly. 

The glass knife maker provides the ability to manually create glass knives used for ultramicrotomy or histology. Useful in TEM and light microscopy, strips of 25 mm wide glass are scored and broken into squares, which are then broken in half to produce two triangular knives, one with a straight, sharp edge used for sectioning. The balanced break method is used in this machine.

The Leica TXP Microscopy Sample Preparation System is used for precise cutting and polishing of samples before ion milling or ultramicrotomy. The integrated stereomicroscope and ring LED illuminator allow for sample observation and distance measurement during preparation.

Four point electrical measurements are utilized to more accurately determine the sheet resistance of bulk samples or thin films because they can eliminate the effect of contact resistance.

Mercury Intrusion Porosimeter (MIP) is a powerful technique utilized for the characterization of pore size distribution, pore volume and porosity of a variety of solid and powder materials. Samples analyzed by this technique are placed in a sample cell with liquid mercury surrounding the sample.  Force is applied to intrude the mercury into any voids or pores within the sample bed.  Larger voids and pores will fill first, at lower pressure.  As the pressure behind the mercury increases, smaller and smaller pores will begin to fill.  The volume of mercury intruded into the sample is recorded at each pressure point. The Washburn Equation is then used to relate the applied pressure to a pore diameter.  The volume of mercury intruded into the sample at each pore diameter can then be reported.

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy is primarily used to probe the bond configurations of atoms in the top 2-10 nm of a thin film specimen. 

The Olympus FV3000 laser scanning confocal microscope is designed for high-resolution confocal observation of fixed and living cells, point-detection, spectral detection that does variable bandwidth filtering, high efficiency of excitation, 3-D imaging, and time course experiments. 

The Olympus BX60M optical microscope is capable of magnifications from 5-100x. Digital image acquisition and post processing is available. Additionally, the system is capable of simple polarized light microscopy and Nomarski interference contrast microscopy. Nomarski interference contrast microscopy uses the comparison of the different optical path lengths of a sample to image otherwise invisible features. This is commonly used for imaging unstained biological samples and defects in thin semiconductor samples.

This equipment embeds tissue samples and creates paraffin-embedded tissue blocks efficiently and without error to produce better micro-sections of desired sample/tissues. It has a 3-module design that features a Dispensing console, Thermal console, and a Cold plate console . The low work surface with integrated paraffin block de-waxer helps to speed up workflow. 

This equipment is used to mechanically pre-thin Transmission Electron Microscopy samples prior to Ar+ ion beam thinning to electron transparency.  The tools either “flat” or “dimple” the surface(s) of a 3mm dia disc through a series of grinding and/or polishing steps.

Raman-AFM-TERS. HORIBA's leading Raman technology is now integrated with AIST-NT’s scanning probe microscopy (SPM). The NanoRamanTM platform integrates Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) that can provide physical sample information on the nanometer scale, including topography, hardness, adhesion, friction, surface potential, electrical and piezo response (among many others), Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM), tuning fork techniques (Shear-force and Normal-force imaging modes), electrochemistry, all together with the chemical information obtained from Raman spectroscopy.

The DektakXT® stylus surface profiler is an advanced thin and thick film step height measurement tool.

The FEI Talos™ f200i S/TEM is a 200 kV field emission (scanning) transmission electron microscope that has been designed for fast, precise and quantitative characterization of nanomaterials; achieving atomic resolution.

Please contact ARSC Staff to purchase consumables. Consumable costs are outside of the monthly project cap. Contact us at analysisrsc@txstate.edu if you have any questions.

The Tergeo Plasma Cleaner generates a plasma of high-purity Argon and/or Oxygen to remove hydrocarbon contamination from TEM sample rods and samples.

The ultrasonic disc cutter is used for producing 3mm diameter disks/rods of ceramic, metal, semiconductor and/or geological specimens for TEM analysis. The titanium cutting tool excursion is driven with a lead zirconium titanate (PZT) crystal at a driving frequency of 26 kHz. Boron or silicon carbide powder slurry is used as the cutting media.  

UV-Vis Spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over visible and ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify materials.

EZ9-HF High Field vector vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) is for the characterization of magnetic materials including powders, thin films and bulk magnetic materials.

A thermosonic ball-wedge wire bonder is designed to interconnect wire leads to semiconductor, hybrid, or microwave devices.

The precision endless wire saw is specially designed and equipped with a diamond wire to provide a very smooth cutting for almost all kinds of materials in the presence of an anti-corrosive cutting fluid.

Our Rigaku SmartLab X-ray Diffractometer (XRD) is utilized to probe the crystalline structure of matter to determine thickness, composition, relaxation, strain, area uniformity, density, roughness, phase, crystalline texture, % crystallinity, and pore/grain size of both thin films and powder samples. 

The Rigaku Supermini200 is a benchtop wavelength dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (WDXRF) Spectrometer capable of measuring elemental concentrations (Aluminum through Uranium) present in solid, thin film, powder, and liquid specimens.  Sample preparation is simple and this unit can be loaded with up to 12 samples up to 44mm diameter for batch processing.

X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy is primarily used to probe the bond configurations of atoms in the top 2-10 nm of a thin film specimen.  Soft X-ray radiation (from Al and/or Mg sources, need both to distinguish XPS from Auger) is directed at the sample to induce emission of inner shell electrons.  Measuring the characteristic kinetic energy of the emitted electrons is used to determine their binding energy and therefore what atom they came from as well as the local bonding scheme.