Facilities - new | Oxford Micromechanics & Microstructure Group

Bruker/Hysitron TI Premier	high load, and low load heads, continuous stiffness measurement, nanopositioning stage (AFM), mapping
MML Nanotest Extreme	high temperature 950 C nanoindenter in a vacuum chamber, heating to tip and sample
Agilent G200	high load, and low load heads, continuous stiffness measurement, nanopositioning stage (AFM), express mode mapping, scratch testing
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.

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