Introducing the first open source SEM digital image capture solution, the Open Beam Interface!
GitHub:
Bring your analog SEM into the digital world, all over one USB type-C connection.
Taking orders now for our first batch of 6 boards, DM for details.
So news flash everyone MEMS gyroscopes are amazing. This is a L3GD20HTR from ST Microelectronics that I decaped and imaged under my SEM. It uses the deflection of the suspended silicon to sense roll in all 3 axis, even though the device is mostly 2D in nature.
These isometric shots of MEMS devices really start to show just how amazing the high aspect ratio process used by device manufacturers are. Also the idea of using silicon as springs and actuators still blows my mind.
So what do you do when
@jeriellsworth
's
@tiltfive
sends you a sample of the retroreflectors they use to make their table top AR system? Of course I stick it in a Focused Ion Beam Microscope to figure out how they are made by slicing them in half with a beam of metal. [Thread]
Here is some cool slow motion videoof
@SpritesMods
hacked inkjet cartridge printing out a Nyan Cat. If you look closely you can see the ink drops in the air.
@hackaday
#supercon
Used a sphere of plastic and the Open Beam Interface to capture Electron Microscope selfies on our
@JEOLUSA
JSM 6400 SEM from the 80s.
I charged the sphere with a 20kV beam, then dropped the beam energy to 3kV to bounce the beam off the sphere and image the inside of the SEM.
Ok what on Earth is going on with the structure of this salt water diatome? I'm amazed at the mechanical complexity especially given that this image is at a mag 3 times that of what an optical microscope could do. Ridiculously impressive.
Taken at 35kV @ 4800x mag on my SEM.
Oh my god. Wow. I mean really wow. There's literally an integrated Ash Tray in the console on this old TEM. How was this remotely considered a good idea? And a marketing point at that?
Captured some scans under the SEM and FIB of the AMG8833 Grideye 8x8 thermal camera using our Open Beam Interface.
The FIB milled out the rectangle, revealing in cross section wires looping around forming a thermistor. Under each pixel is a KOH etched void for thermal isolation.
Well this is an interesting PCB fab method. This entire side of the PCB is a kapton sandwich and the traces are in the middle of that. To make the 90 the PCB is cut while seperating the kapton from the FR4 to make the corner. For a second I thought this was hot bar.
When you turn the brightness down on a Vacuum Florescent Display in a dark room you can really see the red glow of the hot cathode. Honestly I love this aesthetic.
This is an unusually interesting decap, showing a lot more about how ICs are constructed and wired than most decaps. HF acid was used to remove the supporting SiO2, leaving the matalic wiring and buses behind. All of the little cubes are vias that connected layers together.
If someone is looking to get into garage electron microscopy, here's your chance! 3 *FREE* JEOL 35C Scanning Electron microscopes, just north of Orlando FL.
Amongst older SEMs, 35C has one of the best floor area to performance ratios. 35C was my second SEM, great starter SEM.
We have completed our first Open Beam Interface installation!
@Fishguy_FHL
lab is now capturing 16x larger scans than was possible before.
Big milestone for us, first time delivering our open source hardware to a customer.
Get in touch if you too want us to upgrade your SEM.
An edited single shot from last night's eclipse. It's exposed so you can see the star field behind the moon. I'm kinda sad it's going to be so many years until our next eclipse. Canon 6D with 70-200 f2.8
@whitequark
@ravinaproject
Capturing images from SEMs and FIBs!
Positioning the beam with 2 DACs, counting electrons with 1 ADC. Glasgow runs the entire show. Would have spent *a lot* longer futzing with USB without it.
1st image is 8k capture from 16,000lb dual beam,
#2
is ICE40 FIB milled at Teardown.
I think it's important that everyone knows that this is a diatome that exists in the ocean. I don't know what it looks like before it was dried for SEM but still this is a silica skeleton of a living organism and that's pretty incredible to me. Taken at 3200x Mag 25kV on my SEM.
So what's my plan for
@hackaday
#supercon
this year? Bringing a small fleet of microsopes, the most powerful of which is going to be this Electron Microscope. That's right, I'm spending almost 2 weeks to move this scope to and from a conference for 3 days use.
This is a particular interesting section of the decaped and etched iCE40UP5k. If I do this decap again I'm going to try to be a lot gentler with my rinses. This thing is so stringy that it's very fragile. It would also be fun to do some cross sectioning and etching on.
We are going live! At 5:30 PST we will be (trying) to cut some diatoms in half with the Focused Ion Beam we have in our shop. We will filter out the diatoms, sputter coat them in gold, then use the beam of gallium ions to slice and image them.
Join us at !
We sold our first hardware! Thanks
@Fishguy_FHL
for being the first, looking forward to coming back to your marine bio lab and putting an Open Beam Interface on your
@JEOLUSA
Neoscope.
16,384 x 16,384 will be a big upgrade!
Here's to some high resolution fish texture scans!
Introducing the first open source SEM digital image capture solution, the Open Beam Interface!
GitHub:
Bring your analog SEM into the digital world, all over one USB type-C connection.
Taking orders now for our first batch of 6 boards, DM for details.
So is anyone looking to get a Focused Ion Beam? I'm trying to help a friend sell one of his systems. It's a Micrion 2500 with 1 internal gas injector and 4 more manifolds for additional chemistries. The system is fully functional, and comes with full schematics and service docs.
I got trinocular hardware for one of my stereo scopes recently so I bolted my DSLR on and have been experimenting some with doing focus stacks. This is the AMG8833 thermal camera that
@adafruit
sent me a while ago at about 40x. Each shot is made up of about 20 frames.
Damn they really don't make TEMs like they used to. This is the Cambridge HREM. The column is suspended directly beneath the power supply, because the electron gun and accelerator is built into the center stack there. It ran at 600 kV and was capable of atomic resolution imaging.
I'm having a pretty major what the hell am I doing moment. This is the exploded view for the section I am currently working in. Couple that with the fact that I just have half the column hanging in the air next to me.
I feel like if I don't control myself my feed would just be alternating between photos of me sputter coating something because I think it looks cool followed by images from the SEM because I think that also looks cool.
Everyone, say hello to my new friend. It's a
@JEOLUSA
JSM 840 currently on the ground in Chicago. I am flying out tomorrow to bring it back to Washington and install it for a science eduction non-profit teaching high school students skills needed to work in high energy physics.
Tonight we are going to use the beam of gallium ions to cut open some MEMS microphones from
@adafruit
. After that we have some other MEMS devices we could put under the scope, join in the chat to help us decide.
Starting at 5:30 PST ?
#Supercon
shenanigans.
@strangepartscom
hacking on his "badge". Turned out the exploded iPhone jig he brought had some flex cables that needed a bit of rework.
Decaping the device cleanly is difficult, what makes it special is how small it is. Instead of being packaged in epoxy like most devices it's entirely encased in silicon, making it challenging to cleanly open up. Regardless it produces some great SEM images.
The decapping process on this chip detached the bond wires from the die. All of the bright dots are vias. You can see where they have been knocked off by the bond wires during decapping.
Looking for a 10 minute introduction to electron microscopes? The talk I gave at
@hackaday
#supercon
is now up. I cover what SEMs and TEMs are, what they are good for, and some more advanced usuage modes for both. If you have any questions feel free to ask!
I can't believe how flexible silicon is, look at the right side to see what I mean. This is a damaged sense comb from a MEMS accelerometer. The decaping process I use leaves the device contaminated afterwards, so I tried ultrasonicating it. Turns out it didn't like that.
These new filters really are fantastic. I'm getting great preps with minimal sample damage, good dispersion, and no charging problems even when running at high kV and probe current. It takes some fenessing to get images this good off of a SEM that's ~45 years old, but here I am!
Haha lol optical clarity? This is literally the worst I have ever seen in an optical scope. Here is a comparison from another scope I cleaned up showing what I'm looking for in terms of clarity and sharpness.
You can see the phosphor disk (scintillator) in the center of the cage (collector), that is what is capturing the electrons that make up this image. It's called an Everhart–Thornley detector.
The tube sticking in below that is x-ray spectrometer.
I have hardly posted any of my non electron microscope related photography, so I'm going to try changing that. I really love doing long exposure work like this. This was taken over about 30 seconds and done with a programmable bar of 200 RGB LEDs.
I think it’s possible I’m the first person to be doing dual beam alignments via an iPad (Sidecar).
Unexpected benefits of the Open Beam Interface for the win! The main monitor is facing away from the microscope, but I can just walk around with my iPad to wherever I need to be.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
Ok let's see what we can do with this new shop.
If you're an electron microscope facility that needs a hardware hacker, or a hardware hacker that needs an electron microscope, you should talk to us.
Have something in mind but not sure if it's a good fit? DM us and let's chat.
Beam down the column! That's oficaly the fastest start-up I've done after a move. Doing it this fast was pretty much all in the prep. I've got more alignments to do tomorrow and then it's time for the workshop!
Oh yeah I really love it when the TEM has a massive vacuum leak caused by someone putting a giant scratch in the o-ring seat on the $60k camera. Yeah no big deal at all. Seriously what the hell. This is why under no circumstances do you use metal tools to remove o-rings.
In high performance SEMs, even a single wire not covered in a ground shield can cause major problems. Not from electrical interference or anything, but from electrons getting trapped in the surface of the insulator and causing static beam deflection.
@LitMoose
I have had a lot of success with the "thermal decap" proces. I find that not directly exposing the die to the flame yields the best results. The epoxy just sits there and breaks down and oxidizes without damage from the flame. I immediately dump the device in water and it just...
This scope is really fun. The chamber + about half of everything else is from a FEI prototype system, and the rest is parts Dr. Erik Sánchez had/bartered for.
Apparently there are only ~5 green frame FEI dual beams in the world. Anyone else have one?
Hey if any of y'all need help with your Electron Microscope, we have availability in our field support schedule.
We work on SEM TEM and FIB, and do a lot more than just service - including applications and methods development, custom tooling for service and sample prep, (1/2)
One of the biggest lightning storms in the past few years just finished rolling through Pierce County, Washington. I managed to grab my camera and get it set up in time to capture a few strikes that were awfully close.
#wawx