Materials Science

Materials science is a diverse field including the development and testing of new substances, as well as the refinement of manufacturing processes and quality control for existing products. WITec imaging systems are particularly well-suited for comprehensive sample analyses in materials science and provide the opportunity to acquire a thorough knowledge of the sample surface morphology and chemical composition.

Application Examples

Topographic confocal Raman Image of a metal screw acquired with TrueSurface Microscopy. Investigation of contaminations on threads.
Material stress in silicon imaged via peak-shift analysis. Blue: Tensile strain; Yellow: Compressive strain.

WITec’s highly versatile instruments can combine various imaging techniques to significantly increase the insights provided by measurement results. Possible combinations which can be included in a single microscope setup include confocal Raman imaging, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Nearfield-Microscopy (SNOM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Confocal Raman imaging provides chemical information, AFM detects topography, structure, and physical properties such as stiffness, adhesion, etc. of the sample’s surface, and SNOM high-resolution measurements can optically reach beyond the diffraction limit. All WITec instrument configurations can be upgraded at any point to adapt the system to new or extended requirements.
AFM topography image of a steel surface.
Confocal Raman image of a porous membrane, fibers (red), pores filled with oil (blue), and TiO2 particles (green).