Thermo Scientific Helios 5 Laser PFIB

The Thermo Scientific Helios 5 Laser PFIB system is an advanced focused ion beam scanning electron microscope (FIB-SEM) with a fully integrated femtosecond laser that quickly characterises millimetre-scale volumes of material in 3D with nanometre resolution. The product combines the Thermo Scientific Elstar SEM Column for ultrahigh-resolution imaging and advanced analytical capabilities with a plasma FIB column for high performance at all operating conditions, and a femtosecond laser that is said to enable in situ ablation at material removal rates not previously obtained by a commercially available product.

The system is designed to accelerate the pace of research for both academic and industrial users, allowing them to characterise materials in a matter of minutes as opposed to days. Not only can researchers quickly image statistically relevant, site-specific, millimetre-size cross-sections at nanoscale resolution, they can also set up large-volume 3D analyses to be automatically completed overnight, freeing up the microscope for other uses.

The device allows researchers to obtain large-volume 3D and subsurface data up to 15,000 times faster than a typical gallium ion source focused ion beam (Ga-FIB). For many materials, a large cross-section of hundreds of microns can be milled in less than 5 min. Serial-section tomography is now possible with this combination of laser and plasma FIB, and can be extended to 3D elemental and grain orientation analysis at the millimetre scale when combined with EDS and EBSD detectors.

The product makes it easy for academic and industrial labs to process challenging non-conductive, air-sensitive and beam-sensitive materials. They can also expedite failure analysis while obtaining fast access to buried subsurface layers often inaccessible with traditional FIB. The FIB-SEM can be used to analyse a variety of materials, including metals, batteries, glass, ceramics, paint coatings, polymers, biomaterials and graphite.