ELECTRON-MICROSCOPY AND MICROANALYSIS OF ADVANCED MATERIALS

The characterization of advanced ceramics requires the application of advanced electron microscopy,, diffraction and microanalysis. Examples are given here of high resolution (atomic) imaging and microanalysis sis by energy loss spectroscopy together with their main limitations. These limitations inevitably refer to instrumentation capabilities, an d especially the quality? and thinness restrictions of specimens. Exam ples are presented of atomic resolution for structure analysis of nano structure/fiber ceramics and parallel energy loss spectroscopy and ene rgy filtering for evaluating processing problems in BN-SiC fiber compo sites. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Limited. All rights reserved.