AES and SAM analysis of high performance ceramics

Effective reducing the charging on surface of ceramics is the key point of AES and SAM analysis in ceramic materials. After the preparation of them by thinning, the charging sharply drops down on the surface of ceramic samples, thus opening up a new application of AES and SAM technology in the analysis of a few tons of nm size microarea since the electron beam with a high beam energy and a small spot can be focused on the samples without obvious charging. Therefore, with a Microlab 310-F Thermal Field Emission Scanning Auger Microprobe, the chemical composition (except for H and He elements), chemical state and structure can be identified at about 30nm areas. In this paper, four kinds of high performance ceramic samples were discussed, (1) doped Dy cr-Sialon, (2) doped Y, La alpha -Si3N4, (3) Al2O3+SiC whisker composite through nitrogen and (4) SiC matrix + C-on-BN-on-SiC multilayer fiber composite. It was observed that Si(LVV) and Si(KLL) shift to 84eV and 1613eV respectively in kinetic energy and the former keeps on shifting to about 80eV due to the binding of Si-N-O. Four different solid solution phases and three different intergranular phases exist in some microareas of (1) sample and Si shows two or more than two kinds of binding states in the intergranular phases of (2) sample. In addition, C layer and the C-BN interlayer can be detected on the surface of C-on-BN-on-SiC multilayer fibers pulled out from the fractured SiC matrix.