ERA's Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) service provides a start-of-the-art facility for the observation and analysis of all types of vacuum-tolerant materials backed up by highly experienced professional experts to provide you with the results you need. Contamination problem? Worn or broken component? Concerned about material composition? Coating failure?

Scanning electron microscopy can be used to look at metals, ceramics, glass, dust, hair, teeth, bone, minerals, wood, paper, rubber and polymers, as well as including imaging modes that are of special value to the semiconductor and electronics industry.

SEM analysis can be carried out on an individual or call off contract basis or through our subscriber scheme, AccessERA.

Our capability in brief Scanning electron microscopy is a powerful technique which can be employed in many ways, for example:
	Examination of very small samples and small things in samples: the magnification achievable in an SEM is many times that of an optical microscope enabling features down to 2 nanometres to be resolved.
	Photographing items with high depth of field: the depth of field in an SEM is about 300 times that of an optical microscope. Hence it is possible to keep more of an irregular sample in focus.
	Analysis of the elemental composition of materials including RoHS analysis: ERA’s SEM includes the latest microanalysis system which can map the composition of a surface or analyse selected regions down to volumes as small as one cubic micrometre. The system includes both energy dispersive (ED) and wavelength dispersive (WD) x-ray analysis. The latter is a particularly advanced tool rarely found on SEMs and capable of providing much higher detection sensitivity and discrimination of elements than ED.
	Automated particle detection. The system provides fast, accurate information about feature morphology and chemistry in samples such as dusts, gunshot residues, inclusions in steel and filtered particulates from oils. This system has proved invaluable in applications like checking for the presence and source of contaminants in oil lines, data centres or automotive / aerospace components. Without automation the same task may take too long or be insufficiently thorough.
	Examination of highly insulating samples without coating: Most SEMs require any insulating sample to be coated in a thin conducting layer. ERA’s environmental SEM removes this need allowing the sample to be looked at “as is”. This is particularly valuable where a sample must be reused or where it is impossible to coat properly (e.g. a fibrous material).
Backscatter image of silica filled polymer with addition of false colour highlights compositional information (click on image to enlarge) ED spectrum of area on printed circuit board quantifies the composition (click on image to enlarge)
More details ERA’s technical experts have many years experience investigating a vast range of materials from a huge range of sectors and applications from consumer electronics to cosmetics, automotive to aerospace, marine to industrial, patents to paper. For more on the above capabilities and for detailed technical information click here or follow the links in the right hand menu.