TEM for the complete novice.





Well, this is a story about how I together with the help of some friends, salvaged an old TEM destined for the scrapheap and made it into a working instrument again.... we hope...

It all begun when I saw an ad about an used SEM on LabX with a price I could afford. I then realised that I could be the owner of an analytical SEM.

I didn't buy that instrument of various reasons, but I started to read up on the subject, x-ray analysis, SEM theory, vacuum theory, EDS, WDS, sample preparation ... and so on.
Since my budget was limited (<5000$) I got used to scan all auction sites I could find for a suitable instrument. I also tried to ask friends (rather tortured them with my constant talk about SEM:s) until a friend at work said "I know someone who might know where to find an instument here in Umeå.". After the weekend he returned with a name on who I should contact.
When I contacted her she was very nice and told me that it wasn't a SEM but a TEM, a JEOL 100CX. I didn't know much of what a TEM was capable of, but I knew that it was possible to do some crystallography in thin fragments on a TEM, so we decided that I should visit her and have a look.
After a week, me and Nisse went to see the TEM. We were lead into a smaller room that had just one instrument in it.
I was prepared on seeing a bigger and heavier instrument than the SEM I looked at two months prior, but the sheer size of it was astounding.
A JEM 100CX is a machine that fills a room 3 by 3m and it is over 2.5 m high! - Gosh, was I releived that I didn't learned that in front of a container.. :-)

I started to look it over, opening panels, asking questions and wondering how to run away without loosing my face.
After the first shock had settled I started to realise that it probably was an impossible task to find a place to put it, move it and get it running. As an added obstacle, it was broken. One of the lens current control circuits wasn't working.
Anyhow, I borrowed the documentation with circuit diagrams, mecanical drawings and user guide. The first thing I opened happened to be the wiring diagram and right on the drawing of the lens current control circuit. It was very simple and I saw that it ought to be able to fix in just a few evenings. Well, that looks like one problem less, but all the other seemed harder to get over.

After reading the manuals and the circuit drawings it felt almost possible to do this. The largest obstacle now seems to be to find a place to put a 2.5 m high instrument that weighs in on over 1.5 ton.

2002-03-23 Well, I just realised that if this is working I ought to document what we did, both good and bad, and maybe finally the first picture taken with the TEM.
This will be a combination of a crazy page on the net, a diary and a collection of all notes and links we use during this project.

2002-04-02 I have located a suitable basement to place the TEM in about 1.5 km from home but I doesn't get access until the first of july, I probably have to store the scope for a month or two.
I have also found out that the old SEM that started this hunt is yet again up for sale on LabX but this time a 1000$ less than last time. I will try to convince the guy selling it that he should export it to Europe... :-)
I have also placed bids on a FTIR spectrometer (broken) and a sputter coater (working) on LabX.

2002-04-05 After talking with a number of Swedish representants for SEM manufacturer I decided that I won't bid on the SEM on LabX. The most of them couldn't help me but finally I got a very positive response at Hitachi. He told me that he should check with his contacts in the universities, and we also discussed the equipment for specimen preparations.

2002-05-10 I brought my friend Per-Olof to see the TEM. He thought it was a cool thing to salvage, so now we are two involved in this project. We stayed about an hour, lifting plates, opening hatches and discussed the general working of a TEM. Finally we tried to remove the ASID unit, but when we saw how big it really is we left it for later.
The idea is to attach some of the signals of the ASID to a PC with a signal acquisition board, to construct a passive picture collection system. It shouldn't be too hard to do.
To not leave with empty hands, we brought one of the broken object lens current regulators to investigate.

2002-05-13 The question of where to put the TEM isn't resolved yet. We were shown a perfect place to put it just to find out that two days later that we couldn't hire it. Now I have heard by rumours that it might be possible to hire that place anyhow. We will check some other places first, but we probably have to decide this week.

2002-05-22 This is disaster, now I'm told I can't have the basement either, the owner (Västerbottens fastighet AB) claims that it has rented it all to another company.
Well, back to square one again and hunt for another place to put the scope.

2002-07-11 OK, the locality seems to be solvet yet again. We finally are back at the house we were shown a month ago, but the rent is up by 33%! I'm not a happy customer at Västerbottens fastigheter AB, but our alternatives isn't any better, so this is it.
The location is three km from home, so it is relatively close by. Under ten minutes by bike.

2002-07-16 I was talking with a friend today and he told me that he has a heavy lorry and he offered to move the TEM when it is packed. Of course I accepted! :-)

2002-08-?? I have sent a request for tips on how to move the TEM on the MSA mailinglist and the response was far more than I ever hoped for. From small things as not blow on the phosphorus screens to detailed instructions on how to remove cables and column.
One guy even volunteered to come and help us on site.

2002-08-15 Time to check my theories... P-O and I went to the TEM and started to take out the OL-current control to repair it. It seemed harder than we thought it should be. We finally realised that we could measure the unit from the outside and it turned out to be OK. At least it wasn't the problem we thought it was.
But we found a blown fuse and a contact that's corroded on the OL-current control. It might explain the problem with the system.
Anyhow, we had both brought digital cameras and we started to take pictures to document the system. 110 pictures later I was out of memory and P-O out of batteries.
We decided that next week we should try to start the TEM and see what the exact error is. I'm going to take some vacation to do the move.

2002-08-21 There is some other problems in the system. The vacuum system doesn't switch over to the diffusion pumps (DP) even though the roughing pumps (RP) takes the column down to 180 uA on the pirani gauge. (I wonder what that is in real world pressure.)
After venting the column, gun, dessicator and camera chamber we realised that it won't get any better than this. The vacuum system pumps the column down but never goes on to switch the valves. This was the last attempt to fix it before the move.
After lunch we decided to start the dismantling. P-O had to go to Stockholm but I went back and started to pick it apart.
The first problem was where to start.... OK, let's take the workbench off. Easy done! Then I realised why it's so heavy. The central console is built around a steel frame with a three cm thick iron plate at top! Only the plate should weigh around 150-200 kg!
Then I decided that removing the ASID should be a good place to start. I started removing the camera, then SEI and BSE detector connectors and the bottom detector.
There are a number of cables to both the left and right console. The ASID seems to be electrically placed between the left and right console.
Each cable takes about ten minutes to sort out where it starts and ends, to get it out, tape it together and take some photos.
The ASID is almost loose now, only a few cables still to go, but that I'll do tomorrow.
Back home I sorted out the pictures (95 today), wrote the diary and had some tea. :-)
At this rate we should have between 500 and 1000 pictures documenting the disassembly to help us put the system back together.

2002-08-22 The second day. Only three set of cables left on the ASID. After an hour the ASID was finally loose and I could put it aside.
The next logical step is to remove the right and left console. To do that you first have to take off the knobs on the specimen translation mechanism. I had some problems with that until I realised the central cap was screwed and not just pushed in place. Judging from the damage on the left one I'm not the first one that made that mistake.
On the left side you just remove the knob and the cover plate, but on the right side you have to remove the electronics for shutter control too.
Then it's possible move the consoles apart to easier access the cables. There are a lot of cables between the three consoles but before I could start with the cables I had to empty the cooling system. After lunch I finally came up with a nice plan to drain the cooling system. Since it was possible to run on external water there was also an outlet into a floor drain. If I only closed the the closed chiller system and opened the drain I could open the cooling system on a high point, letting air in, it would empty itself automatically.
A good plan... in theory. But as I soon learned, real life is often more complicated than theory.
When I opened the cooling tube on the condenser I got a small cascade of water over me. The system was under pressure! I had missed a valve that connected the cooling system to the drain. Luckilly I hadn't missed the valves connecting to the water supply so it was only a small amount of water that came on me, but enough to make me feel stupid!
After opening the drain valve I could open the cooling system again, but this time it went as planned and only some water was left in the cooling system .
I also opened the connector on the water cooled baffle to drain the second branch of the water system.
After that I could start removing the cooling hoses from the lens current controls. There were still some water in the system, but a paper towel took care of the spill.
In the left console there is no cooling water, but there are a vacuum hose and a tube for compressed air. It's easy to disconnect and I covered the connectors with aluminum foil. Then it was only a matter of removing cables, cables and cables... but eventually I realised that I had documented, disconnected, marked, cleaned and fastened all the cables. The consoles were separated!!!
This was a very good time to stop for today. It took me six hours to separate the three consoles and I've taken 160 pictures during the day that I have to sort tonight.

2002-08-26 Day three. I had other things to do on friday but since everything had gone smoother than I planned, I felt I could take the day off. But today it's monday and the work continues.
I started the day by walking around, taking a lot of photos on various details. Actually I was only postponing the moment I had to deal with some rather messy parts of the move. Finally I started with removing the vacuum tubes, the concrete block and the rotary pumps. It wasn't easy to loose the tubes inside the central console, but finally I got them out and sealed. One of the tubes had a lot of oil inside, I think I have to go through that pump to see if there are any leaking seals.
The next step was the air and water hoses. The air tube was no problem, but the water hoses was stuck on the wall connector. The last one was really troublesome, but then I just made a cut along the end and it came off nice and easy.
The only thing left was the cables to the power supply. It wasn't a nice sight. The cables had spent a number of years in oil, cooling water and other dirt. It ain't a nice job but someone had to do it.
When I had the cables cleaned, whiped and rolled together I felt good. Finally the main console was disconnected too. The next step is to remove the top of the column, the HT-cable, the HT-tank and the top of the vacuum manifold.
Since I was out of memory cards for the camera I only studied the electron gun and made up plans for how to proceed tomorrow.

2002-08-27 Day four. Well, the day didn't start so good. I overslept and was more than an hour late.
When I got to the TEM I started with the HT-cable. First I loosened the side in the HT-tank. To get the cable out I had to loosen the clamp halfway up on the column. When that side was free and wrapped I felt I had to fasten the cable to reduce the danger of damaging it when I removed the gun. I solved the problem with some tape and started to remove the gun with the wehnelt cylinder from the upper anode chamber.
It was a few nervous minutes, standing on a swaying console, trying to lift the insulator without hitting the sides of the chamber. Finally I got it all down onto the floor where I documented it and wrapped it in cotton, paper and aluminum foil.
The next step was to remove the upper part of the column. From the beginning I didn't really know how to do it, but I had to learn as I went on with it. The upper and lower anode chambers didn't look too nice in their wrappings, but finally I got the hang of it.
When I came down to the specimen chamber I realised that there was a whole lot of cables going into it. I decided that it was best to take a look before lifting it, so I opened the left port. It was a real mess. Cables running on and off mixed with detectors and pole pieces. I decided that after all I didn't have to take the specimen chamber off, so I just sealed it off and went on to the gun lift.
That was a little surprise, I didn't expect it to go down into the vacuum manifold, but when I lifted it off it had a cylindrical tap that went down more than a dm. I really should have seen that when I studied the drawings, but somehow I missed that.
Now it was only one thing left to remove, the HT-tank. The tank isn't fastened in any way and is just standing in the back of the column on a loose plate. After taking off four cables and the grounding cable it was just to lift it out of the console.
The microscope is now in pieces and the only thing still left to do is to put the units on pallets and collect all spare parts from the lab.
After all, this proved to be a good day. Now I'm going to celebrate with a guinnes.

    :-)

2002-08-29 All parts are now placed on pallets. Now we have to wait for the locality to be finished. There's no walls there yet so I doubt that we could start to build the room next week. Anyhow, we have already put some boxes with smaller pieces there.

2002-09-05 The big move is finally done!!! With a friend and his lorry it was no problem to transport the TEM to the new location. I only had to remove one more part of the vacuum manifold to get it through the doors and the elevator. All was done in just about an hour.
Now we have to decide the layout of the new lab, build some walls and then we could start with the best part of this, to try to put it back together again.
We will probably keep it on the pallets for a while, then we could move it around without too much problems. We also have to make some flashy posters to put on the wall. I've seen it in other labs, so we should also have some.

2002-09-18 Nothing much have happened. The location starts to look a lot better. We are sharing it with some friens who works with sound and light for discotheques and they have a hundred square meters with equipment to sort after their move.
Anyhow, I, P-O and Ann visited the TEM tonight and discussed what we would need to do to get started. The three largest obstacles before we could turn the power on is that

  • We have 3-phase 380V/16A power but we need 220V/20A.
  • We need a closed cooling system.
  • We need compressed air. To solve the first problem we studied the power supply tonight and realised that we could convert it to 3-phase by feeding separate parts of the construction from two different phases. I've checked with the drawings and it seems like it would be no problem with that solution.
    During the examination of the powersupply cabinet we discovered a cable that had a bad connection, it's been overheated and the end was burned. It even had melted the insulator on one end! We'll replace it when we alter the power supply.

    2002-09-25 Today I put the vacuum manifold back together. I tried to do it all by the book. I cleaned the o-rings and then wetted them with a small amount of diffusion pump oil.

    2002-09-26 The column is now completed! ... it sounds so easy, but it took me and P-O two hours to put the pieces back again. It's heavy pieces, so you need one person to lift while the other one is guiding it down without damaging any interconnections.
    It shure feels good to watch the central console in it's full height. The next step is to connect all cables between the consoles.
    I can hardly wait to switch it on, but I don't know if I dare ...   :-)

    2002-10-19 Nothing much have happened during the last month. I've been busy with various other things but finally I've got some spare time to spend on the TEM. Today we met and made some plans on who should do what on the resturation. PO is going to rebuild the power supply. We finally settled on just moving one cable, feeding the DP, RP and compressor on one phase and the rest on phase two. That should bring us down under 16A per phase.
    Since I did all the disconnecting of the cables we think it's better if I put it back together again. I started by connecting the right console.
    I also made some modifications on the cooling system, I removed the heater and replaced the tubes between the central and the right console.

    2002-11-05 The right console is now connected and I replaced the tubes for the cooling system to the right console. The original was too short to allow any easy service so I added half a metre to it. Now we could part the consoles without problems.
    The cables to the right console is now all connected and I begun with the left console.
    PO have started to build the cooling system out of two radiators, a couple of old fans and the circulatory pump from a house heating system.

    2002-11-10 The cooling system is almost complete and all the parts are put up on the wall for easy access. PO have also started to mount the components for the vacuum system.

    2002-11-15 Today I mounted all the cables for the powersupply and pumps. I didn't connect them to the powersupply but I put them in a nice loop beside the microscope. PO have rewired the powersupply to use power from more than one phase. If we would have kept the original wiring we would have needed 20A at 220V but the outlet is at 380V/16A. By using the zero and three phases we reduce the current drawn to under 10A per phase... we hope.

    2002-11-16 All cables in the microscope is now connected except for the OL-current and the high voltage transformer.

    2002-11-17 Today I had company of PO. We started with connecting all the cables to the powersupply and then we moved some cabinets and the vacuum pumps to get a better layout.
    It was now time to turn on the power for the first time since the move..... and it started without any problems .... sort of. Since we didn't have any compressed air the vacuum system never started .... but at least the instrument lights were on.
    So we then went and picked up an old compressor. While PO connected it I went on and soldered the contacts of the OL power supply. It seemed like the old contacts were burned once and the service technician were nervous that it would happen again, so he removed the contacts and soldered the cables together. When we dismantled the microscope we found out that another contact was burned, but we have cleaned it out and hopefully it will work now.
    When the compressed air was working we turned the power on again and this time the roughing pumps started. Time for a little celebration (we shared a light beer) and then we thought we should take some photos so we turned it on again... no pumps and it turned off after ten seconds.
    We tried it several times but it refused to start. Somethings was broken.
    After an hour we found that one of the power relays in the powersupply was jammed, but with the help of a little pressure on the contactor it closed and the roughing pumps started. We made some additional measurements and found that the 24V coil had 50V on it. We took out the relay and saw that the coil was overheated and the isolation was burned.
    This was one of the reasons that FOI got rid of the TEM.
    Before we went home we made an attempt to get the cooling system running but we never got the air out of the tubes.

    2002-11-22 Friday again and with a new pump (the third one we tries out) we made a new attempt to fill the system up, but the pump was too weak. After connecting the microscope to the public water system with a garden hose, we had no problems to get the air out of the system. In fact there was a lot of black stuff that came out in the beginning.
    After the system was filled and the water was reasonable pure we connected the pump again and this time there was no problem to get the water circulating.
    Now we turned our focus on the vacuum system. We put the old relay back again, we hadn't fixed it but with a screwdriver we could always start the microscope. So after running the vacuum pumps for a while we noticed that we didn't get any vacuum in the column. Strange, but it seemed like the vacuum system never turned on the valves to the column.
    Back to the drawings to try to find out how it ought to be working.
    When I was deep into the central console with my head, following the vacuum pipes I bent a tube with compressed air and the connector bursted... now we have to get some spare parts before we could get it running again.

    2002-12-05 PO have fixed the compressed air with something he found in a box at home. If there is something he can't fix I haven't seen it yet. When I got the news I went to the TEM and connected the diffusion pumps. It turned out to be a safety device that senses the current drawn by the DP. if there is no current then the pumps are not working and the valves will not open. There also is a 20 minutes timer that lets the DP reach working temperature before the valves are opened.
    The first thing that happened after both DP:s were connected was that the V14 valve that controls the dessicator opened and evacuated it.
    When I had waited for almost twenty minutes the valves switched and the pumps started to evacuate the column. I waited for half an hour just to see that the pressure was sinking before I interrupted. I will continue the test another day when I have time to monitor the temperature of the cooling water... but so far, so good.    :-)

    2002-12-08 Today I tried the vacuum system again. I started with adjusting the readings of all three pirani gauges to 250uA at atmospheric pressure while the DP:s was warming up. After twenty minutes the valves switched so RP2 started to evacuate the column. After a while it reached 220uA and stuck.... I waited for a long time but nothing happened. The only thing that changed was the temperature of the cooling water, about 1 degree per minute.
    Finally I gave up, I checked the RP:s and discovered that one pump was low in oil. After filling it up and swapped the vacuum tubes to see if we had a bad pump I started it up again. The same procedure... down to 220uA and nothing...
    Maybe something with the vacuum system logic gates then. I took out the circuit board, lifted every IC (all are socketed) and put them down again. In with the card and start again. No change!
    This started to frustrate me since every trial run took about an hour. As I suspected something like this to happen I had brought some work to do.
    Then I took a risk. I had read that the RP could pump down to a pressure when the oil starts to backstream into the vacuum system. Maybe it was something with the pirani gagues. I took a screwdriver and started to adjust the trip point for switching to the DP:s and suddenly the valves switch. The DP: are connected and the pressure starts to drop really fast. Down to 40uA in less than two minutes!
    Now the gun was evacuating... the same procedure there, stuck at 210uA, adjustment and down it goes.... to 0uA, camera ... same thing ... down to zero here too.
    Now I know that there are some strange things going on since the column and the camera are connected (the camera is pumped via the column) but the camera shows a much lower pressure.
    Inspired of the results I connected the last cables, the high voltage tank, and started to set up the microscope for the start procedure, going through the list in the manual.
    I came as far as turning on 80kV but I didn't get any beam current. Now I stopped my self and shut the instrument down. I think I better read the manual and the drawings before I kill our filament. I will try to measure it somehow to see that it isn't broken before I do anything else.
    We are getting closer and closer for each day now and it isn't so far to the first image.

    2002-12-17 Today I got the PGT EDS detector today and as far as I could see it will fit just perfectly but ...... the beryllium window is all gone.. :-(
    But I expected that all the time. Anyhow, I could use it for better understanding the function and possibly even do some experiments with it. I will pick it apart and document it piece by piece.

    2002-12-20 The water pump have broken down after one month of continuous running (it's called stress testing :-) so this model isn't good enough to drive our chiller in the long end. But for running tests it's okay and very cheap (about 2 cents an hour) so I will buy another one tomorrow.

    2003-01-19 A new year and no picture yet.... Tonight we tried to find out why.
    To begin with, we found out that the filament wasn't getting hot by running for a few minutes, raise the electron gun and simply hold the hand near the wehlnert cap. It should have been very hot. Since I already measured the resistance of the filament I knew that it wasn't broken.
    We decided that we should try to measure the circuit that controls the filament current.
    It consists of a simple oscillator that drives two transistors which grounds the windings of the filament transformer. To control the emission (filament current) the power to the transformer is regulated by an ordinary serial regulator with darlington coupled trasistors.
    We soon found out that the power for the transformer was off. Not so strange that we didn't have any emission!
    We followed the cable that supplied the emission circuit to the power supply cabinet. To our surprise the relay that connected it to the big transformer, T4, worked as it should do.
    Maybe a bad winding? We had no power out from the transformer.... the fuse was OK.... we had no power into the transformer... what is feeding that transformer?
    OK a new relay, time to follow wires again. This time I followed it back and fore between the left and right panels, passing switches, thermo fuses and relays on the way. After a while we decided that it was time to break for the night.
    When I got home I continued to follow the wire in the schematics. It finally ended in the left console with a number of cables in a common point named -RE. Since it was connected to plus in the power supply it will turn on the power for the lenses and the filament when all the safety switches are closed.
    My guess is that the thermal fuse in the OL-power supply is broken. But I have to test that later.
    Good night!

    2003-01-21 The problem with the missing emission current is solved!
    It all depended on bad cooling. I thought that the small waterpump we use was enough for keeping the system running even if it got a little hot. But the power supply for the lenses only lasted for five minutes before the thermal switch tripped at 50 degrees.
    When the thermal switch trips it shuts down the relay current that connects TR4 in the power supply. TR4 is responsible for power to the lenses and to the generator for the filament current.
    Now I'm going to get that circulatory pump I've been looking on for the last month. We will probably build a kingsize mobile chiller during the weekend.

    2003-02-02 It took some days but finally PO and I got some time to spend on the TEM. We brought some pipes, valves and an old gauge to fix the cooling.
    We disconnected the old pump and hooked the TEM up on the ordinary water supply. With a gauge and valves it even looked good! When we were finished we tried to start the TEM, but after 40 minutes we got suspicious... the diffusion pumps didn't start.
    OK, half an hour later we found that the 10 second delay timer in the valving circuit wasn't working, strange. Anyhow, nothing we could solve right then so we closed down for this time and I brought the timer back home for repair.

    2003-02-03 I have now tested the delay timer and it is working flawlessly. I don't know why we had problems yesterday, but I will mount it with long cables so I could measure it in place next time I visit the microscope.

    2003-02-13 Today I put the delay timer back and of course it didn't work. I then connected an oscilloscope to see the quality of the 24V, only 0.5V ripple. But when I connected the probe something happened... it started to work. Maybe only a broken soldering, who knows. At least I will go through all the soldering on that card and redo them just in case.
    I have borrowed a holey carbon film to calibrate the column. I also got a sample with catalase crystals for calibrating electron diffraction but more about that later. When I got the delay timer to work I decided to do some testing. I pumped down the vacuum, turned on the high voltage and got an emission current. Now I shut down the room light and tried to see something on the screen. Nothing! I now started to wonder if the power supply for the lenses might have been damaged by overheating.
    I managed to get some bolts off the edge of the cooling tank but I couldn't see anything so I continued to experiment. After a couple of minutes I could see some smoke coming out of the tank. I immediately turned the microscope off, and when it was off I took out the tank and started to remove the rest of the bolts. By touching the side of the tank I realised that the upper third of the tank was hot and the lower part cold. The explanation was simple, it was only filled two third with oil.
    Do you see the smoke? I think I fount the cause! Guess the oil level!
    While examining the components I realised that the smoke was from burned oil on some resistors. There also was a circuit board in the tank with three electrolytic capacitors. Evidently the oil had dissolved the rubber seal and penetrated the capacitors.
    I think I have to replace these components and clean out the tank.

    2003-04-17 Nothing much have happened, I replaced the capacitors on the circuit board and changed the oil to some fresher oil. The microscope is ready for testing but I didn't have time to do it tonight.

    2003-05-03 Finally! A nice green spot appeared on the phosphorus screen in the microscope.
    I was showing the TEM for a couple of friends and I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some tests and see if I could get it running. I connected the cooling water and turned on the vacuum system while I was talking about it. After about 40 minutes the vacuum was good enough and I turned on high voltage and lenses but I never removed the protection over the screen, instead I turned the high power and lenses off and we went bowling.
    When I came back alone I turned the high voltage and lenses on and lifted the window cover. To my surprise I had a nice green circle on the screen!
    I immediately called a number of friends to tell them I finally had made it. Among them was PO and we decided to go try to adjust it later that evening.
    After a couple of hours we met at the site and started to adjust the alignment of the lenses. It wasn't until I turned off the object lens that we got a picture that looked as in the manual. We might have a problem with the object lens, but except from that it looks really promising now.
    I'm going to study the manual now so I get familiar with how the magnetic lenses works.
    OK, everything looks OK to me, time to start testing... ...it can't be... ...YES! It is a green spot! But I think we need to some alignment, it should be at the center of the screen.

    2003-06-08 Today I repaired the broken button on the function selector. Nothing serious but the top had fallen off and it was necessary to use a plier to get the button out when switching function. After I put it back together I just had to test it and play around with it for a few hours.
    I'm getting better on the handling but I haven't been able to get a proper alignment yet, so after a couple of hours I got tired and decided to play a little. I put a thin copper wire into the sample holder and put it in. Then I adjusted the focus and I got a nice siluett of the wire! Yee Haa! The first picture was done! I then started to follow the side of the wire and it was obvious that there was a lot of dirton the wire. I zoomed in on one of the particles and I could keep the focus up to 33000 times! (... I think)
    Well, you see the result here.... a dust particle in 33000 times magnification!    :-)

    2003-07-05 I started the day with some gold panning with the mineral club but when it started to rain we packed up and went home. A friend that I had brought to the panning was interested in the microscope so we went to the TEM and played around a little while. After showing him the basics we managed to get a diffraction pattern from an asbesthos crystal. Yipee!
    On the downside I finally realised that I had some problem in the magnification... I'll have to get back later and do some more measurements.

    2003-07-08 Tonight I went back to do the measurements of the magnification. After a while Per-Olof appeared and then we started to play with the controls. I showed him some tricks I've learnt and then he sat down and tested for himself.
    Suddenly something in the picture moved, a piece of my sample dropped off. Then something else was moving but this time I saw what happened. We were melting the fibres we were looking at! Talk about radiation damage but this was nothing I had expected.
    After a while we got serious and did some real tests on the magnification. It seems like the secondary intermediary lens isn't working... at least in "MAG" mode. It got power to the regulator but the reference signal seems to be missing.
    After melting some more fibres and looking through a gold foil we closed down for the night.

    2003-07-18 The search for what's wrong with the IL2 lens continues. I visited the TEM to take a look at how the circuits really looked. I've read drawings and traced the signal through the right control panel and now I needed to identify some of the circuits in the scope.
    As you can see there is a real mess with all cables running in and out on different connectors. I also took the opportunity to document the apertures. I'm working on a page about the apertures and one on how to align and trim the TEM.

    2003-07-24 Today I'm preparing for a trip to Stockholm to collect another Jem 100CX. But when I was picking up the tools at the microscope I couldn't resist to run some tests.
    As far as I could see there is no problem with IL2, it was as ususal a mistake from my side to think that IL2 should be on all time. The first 18 steps of magnification have IL at the same strength. The question is if the level is wrong, but I guess I have to go back to the schematics again and make a detailed investigation on how the lenses should work at the different stages.

    2003-07-29 Today I got the second TEM delivered. The collection trip was a success, only eight hours to dismount and pack the TEM for me and Per-Olof which was a lot faster than I had planned. It then took us six hours to move it down to the loading bay. It was picked up yesterday, monday and it came up in perfect condition.

    2003-07-30 After some tests today I found two shortcircuited transistors in the lens current control for IL1. I'll take some spare parts from our new system, the lens current regulator tank and the lens current regulator circuitboards.

    2003-08-01 Today I switched the parts between the systems and IL1 started to work without problems.... but then IL2 isn't working now. Whenever I turn off the lens I could hear the relays except in MAG mode. I need to study the drawings some more to see how the circuit is controlled.

    2003-08-04 Another evening at the TEM. I have read the drawings and finally I found out that the relays that connects the lenses are connected at the off position and the lenses are turned off by drawing the relay. I also have found out that for "LOW MAG" IL2 isn't connected except for the three highest magnifications. In "MAG" IL2 is only connected at the the six highest magnifications (>33000 times).
    That means that "MAG" works for most magnifications so I played around with the controls trying to trim the column. After a while I got tired and decided to test some of the specimens I got from Karolinska Institutet. I have no idea of what it is on the grids so I had to take a look.
    At first I didn't see anything but at higher magnifications I started to see rounded blobs, probably some type of cells or viruses. At one point there was some type of small crystal so I decided to see if I could get a diffraction pattern. After some playing around with the controls I got what looked like a diffraction pattern, but as I think reading the manual is boring I probably did a lot wrong, anyhow it looks promising for the future.
    I took some pictures of the phosphorous screen with a digital camera so the quality of the pictures isn't the best. Only quick and dirty!    :-)
    A string of bacteria? Nice crystal but what is it? Diffraction pattern from the crystal.

    2003-08-11

    Finally!!!

    It's ten days short of being a year since I went to FOI and started to dismantle the TEM. Tonight we found the last error in the system. Another of the lens regulator boards were broken. Then the fun started... instead of doing it right we started to examine one of the samples we got from KI. It's really hard to adjust the focus with a badly aligned column but we finally got to 250000 times magnification. After some hour PO got tired and headed for home while I stayed behind to do some more tests. I decided to try to do some alignment of the column and after a while I think I got it in pretty good shape.
    Then I couldn't resist the lure of mounting our thin gold foil and try to do some diffraction. After a while I had everything set up and turned the switch to SA-DIFF and there it was. Not a nice airy matrix of points but a number of rings around the central spot. It was the diffraction circles of a gold foil. I.E a crystallic material but with many crystals adding to the diffraction circles.

    2003-08-14 I just had to go back and take a photo of the diffraction pattern. The microscope started as usual, I did some alignment and then turned it to selected area diffraction. Wow, a hughe amount of diffraction spots appeared on screen and only weak ring patterns! I thought that I would be able to go back to that picture later on so I tried to get it better.... Shouldn't have done that because I never managed to get that pattern back, only rings.
    Anyhow, I took a picture of the rings and then I was satisfied and turned the TEM off.
    So here it is, diffraction pattern of gold. (Don't ask me what the camera length was, I forgot to write it down.)



    Things I have to check :
    • What is the baseline of the vacuum system, how fast is the pump down time?
      - A couple of minutes between samples but hours when the microscope have been opened.
      - As it is today, it takes about one hour from power on until the vacuum is good.
      - If there still is vacuum in the microscope it now takes about 40 minutes to start it.
    • What type of cameras is there?
      - The bottom camera isn't working (missing the film holders) but a 35mm camera is mounted on the side of the high resolution diffraction chamber.
    • Which detectors are included in the ASID, backscatter, secondary electron, transmitted electron (in the bottom for scanning TEM)?
      - All three are attached!
    • Is it OK to take some photos before / during move?
      - We got permission to take photos in that room.
    • Call JEOL and see if there are any instructions on how to move, dismantle or put together a 100CX.
      - Nope, no list from the Swedish JEOL representant but a bunch of good advises from the MSA mailing list.
    Some internal links : Some external links :

    Electron spectroscopy:

    Databases:

    Books:

  • JEOL 100 CX - ..... JEOL 100 CX-II Scanning-Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) The TEMSCAN 100CX-II is a high performance combined electron microscope consisting of the 100CX-II TEM and a scanning attachment of ASID-4D; it has a magnification range for the TEM mode of 360X to 320,000X and 10X to 200,000X for theSEM mode, with a resolution of 2 ?.


  • If you have some questions, suggestions or comments you are welcome to write me a line or two.
    axelsson@acc.umu.se
    To my homepage.
    Last changed : 2003-08-12