Ted Pella, Inc introduced the new Cressington 308UHR precision coating system at M&M 2007 in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The Cressington 308UHR coating system combines a new type DC magnetron sputter sources, plasma/ion cleaning and electron beam sources in one system providing advanced coating solutions for demanding FESEM and TEM applications.

The extremely versatile 308UHR system provides advanced sample coating techniques for both ultra high FESEM applications and demanding TEM applications with the ability to clean sample surfaces before coating. The system is based on the Cressington 308 compact desktop high vacuum system, which comprises 12” stainless steel feedthrough collar with a light-weight stainless metal sample chamber and large rotary-tilting stage. Precise measurement of the coating thickness is provided by the Cressington high resolution thickness monitor system, which is a standard on each 308UHR.

The controllable and powerful glow discharge plasma/ion cleaning head is capable of removing hydrocarbons, adsorbed on sample surfaces, to avoid imaging artifacts. The DC magnetron sputter source, which allows sputtering over a wide pressure range, provides grain-free ultra-thin conformal amorphous chromium coating for ultra high resolution FESEM imaging. The system also enables ultra-structural freeze drying combined with ultra high resolution sputter coating for FESEM imaging.

The E-Beam sources of the 308UHR system provide excellent results for precision rotary metal shadowing for molecular biology and for ultra-thin high quality carbon support films for TEM. The 308UHR also yields excellent results when making rotary replications of deep-etched frozen material for TEM imaging. Furthermore the carbon E-Beam source can also provide accurate ultra-thin carbon coating for FESEM and EBSD applications.