TY - JOUR

T1 - Site-specific femtosecond laser ablation

T2 - The pathway to high-throughput atom probe tomography characterization

AU - Tang, Jing

AU - Renk, Oliver

AU - Tkadletz, Michael

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s)

PY - 2025/1

Y1 - 2025/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Atom probe tomography (APT)

KW - Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD)

KW - Field ion microscopy

KW - High-throughput characterization

KW - Site-specific APT tip preparation

KW - Transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD)

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85211696555&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.matchar.2024.114618

DO - 10.1016/j.matchar.2024.114618

M3 - Article

VL - 2025

SP - 1

EP - 8

JO - Materials characterization

JF - Materials characterization

SN - 1044-5803

IS - 219

M1 - 114618

ER -