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Orientation Imaging Microscopy (OIM)

The OIM consists of a Philips XL40 FEGSEM, equipped with a large specimen chamber and a Peltier cooled CCD camera for acquisition of electron backscattering patterns. The camera mount has also been upgraded to a stepper motor driven screw drive, allowing the camera position to be controlled to meet the diffraction requirements of the experiment. Recently, provisions for fitting a hot stage to run in-situ annealing and orientation data acquisition experiments have been implemented, and have been preliminarily successful. Data collection is provided by commercial OIM software acquired from TSL, and runs on a windows PC workstation. The OIM is part of the Earl and Mary Roberts Materials Characterization Laboratory that houses the department's X-ray and microscopy facilities. The MCL also contains a classroom from which students can remotely control the microscopes.