Facilities - new

 
Bruker/Hysitron TI Premier
high load, and low load heads, continuous stiffness measurement, nanopositioning stage (AFM), mapping
bruker ti premier
MML Nanotest Extreme
high temperature 950 C nanoindenter in a vacuum chamber, heating to tip and sample
mml nanotest extreme
Agilent G200
high load, and low load heads, continuous stiffness measurement, nanopositioning stage (AFM), express mode mapping, scratch testing
 
agilent g200
MTS XP
high load, and low load heads, continuous stiffness measurement
 
MML Nanotest
elevated temperature 400 C nanoindenter in a purge chamber, heating to tip and sample
 
Bruker/Hysitron PI 88 
in-situ indenter system in Tescan FEG-SEM with glove box attachement.  Allows work on air sensitive materials.
bruker pi
 

 

Screw Driven Mechanical Testers
We have two Shimadzu and one Instron bench top mechanical testing frames allowing testing in the range ~10 N to ~10 kN.  We have a variety of grips, and test rigs for tension, compresion, and bend testing, and furnaces/cooling rigs for testing at a range of temperatures.   
 
in situ load frames
We have two Deben load frames for in-situ tensile testing in various settings including with optical or scanning electron microscopic observation and/or in the inert environment of a glovebox 
 
ultrasonic fatigue testers
We have four piezoelectric ultrasonic actuators, and power suplies for fatigue testing at 20 kHz, and 30 kHz.  Testing can be on bulk hourglass shaped samples or on miniature samples allowing testing down into the microscale range.  The high frequency allows millions of cycles to be applied within a minute and opens access to testing in the giga-cycle regime. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SEMs
The two main SEM instruments used by the OMG are:
(i) a Zeiss Merlin FEG-SEM (GEMINI 2 column) with Bruker e–FlashHR EBSD system, plus Optimus head for on-axis TKD work, along with a Bruker flat-quad EDX detector, and 
(ii) a Tescan Mira 3 FEG-SEM coupled with an MBRAUN glovebox in a bespoke system for air sensitive materials. The Tescan has an Oxford Instruments symmetry EBSD detector and EDX.
We also have in-situ indentation & tensile test capabilities for these instruments, and access others within the DCCEM.
 
FIBs
We are significant users of the range of FIB-SEM instruments within the DCCEM facility.  This includes three Ga source, and one Xe plasma source instruments.   
 
TEMs
We make use of TEM instruments within the DCCEM, (though less frequently than SEMs and FIBs).  On occasion we also access the instrument at ePSIC.
 
Optical
We have a variety of optical microscopes within the group labs.  Including options for polarised light observations.
 
AFM
We have a Bruker AFM, used mostly for imaging pile-up and/or sink-in near nanoindents, and nanoscratches, and quantifying topography of slip bands and deformation twinning.
 
Atom Probe
We run multiple joint projects with the Oxford Atom Probe Group and through that collaboration access a hugly powerful characterisation technique. 
 
 
Arc Melter
We have an Arcast arc melter for alloy design work.  This allows to melt small (few hundred grams) samples in vacccum, including tungsten.  This allows initial exploration of new alloys and fits well to small scale mechanical testing and microscopy methods we employ. 
 
Metallography
Kemet Sponsored lab, to contain a range of Kemet/Metkon products, including: cut-off saw, slow saw, mounting press, grinding and polishing machines with auto-heads and media/lubricant despensers, ultrasonic cleaning bath, and optical microscope
 
kemet lab
Nanoindenters