A fast and efficient technique for fixing specimens to electron microscope grids

Electron microscope examination of small crystal chip specimens of insulators and semiconductors is frequently hindered by specimen movement presumably arising from heating or charging effects. This is a particularly serious problem both for conventional dark field imaging at high magnifications and for specimens in microscopes using electronic output, where specimens are often required to remain stationary for periods up to 30 minutes. Sandwiching specimens between grids eliminates movement, but at the expense of a loss of visibility over considerable areas of specimen. If the feature to be observed occurs only infrequently in the specimens prepared, then 'sandwiching' is not a practical answer to movement problems. A simpler way to overcome these problems is to affix the specimen to the grid with a conducting metallic paint. Finely ground silver is placed in colloidal suspension in methyl isobutyl ketone (available commercially as a Laboratory Notes