Site-specific femtosecond laser ablation: The pathway to high-throughput atom probe tomography characterization

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Abstract

The exceptional chemical detection sensitivity and near-atomic scale resolution made atom probe tomography (APT) to an indispensable analytical tool to investigate the 3D chemical nature of crystal defects. However, this renders site-specific APT tip preparation necessary and a long-lasting challenge obvious. The current gold standard for site-specific APT tip preparation using focused ion beams (FIB) is very time and resource consuming. A possible premature tip fracture of the welding zone between tip and specimen carrier can further decrease the success rate. Facing these challenges, APT data sets are rarely of statistically relevant size as mostly only one or just a few sites (e.g., a single grain boundary) are analyzed at best. Here we tackle these issues by successfully implementing femtosecond laser ablation to site-specifically prepare APT tips directly into the specimen, rendering lift-out procedures unnecessary. Our approach drastically reduces preparation time, as before near-net shaping of the APT tips with the laser, only the features of interest have to be marked. The time for the tip ablation process further does not require personal assistance and is independent of the number of tips. Moreover, FIB time is reduced to a final tip sharpening process. The approach is extremely robust, as demonstrated by successful tip preparation of 100 % of the targeted features, including final analysis using field ion microscopy and APT. Thus, site-specific femtosecond laser ablation has the potential to develop APT towards a high-throughput characterization method.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number114618
Pages (from-to)1-8
JournalMaterials characterization
Volume2025
Issue number219
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2025