1] School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK [2] FEI Company, Achtseweg Noord 5, Bldg 5651 GG, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
1] School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK [2] BP International Centre for Advanced Materials, School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
Sci Rep. 2014 Apr 16;4:4711. doi: 10.1038/srep04711.
Increasingly researchers are looking to bring together perspectives across multiple scales, or to combine insights from different techniques, for the same region of interest. To this end, correlative microscopy has already yielded substantial new insights in two dimensions (2D). Here we develop correlative tomography where the correlative task is somewhat more challenging because the volume of interest is typically hidden beneath the sample surface. We have threaded together x-ray computed tomography, serial section FIB-SEM tomography, electron backscatter diffraction and finally TEM elemental analysis all for the same 3D region. This has allowed observation of the competition between pitting corrosion and intergranular corrosion at multiple scales revealing the structural hierarchy, crystallography and chemistry of veiled corrosion pits in stainless steel. With automated correlative workflows and co-visualization of the multi-scale or multi-modal datasets the technique promises to provide insights across biological, geological and materials science that are impossible using either individual or multiple uncorrelated techniques.
越来越多的研究人员开始关注将多个尺度的观点融合在一起，或者将来自不同技术的见解结合起来，以研究同一感兴趣区域。为此，相关显微镜技术已经在二维（2D）层面上产生了大量新的见解。在这里，我们开发了相关断层扫描技术，由于感兴趣的体积通常隐藏在样本表面之下，因此相关任务更加具有挑战性。我们将 X 射线计算机断层扫描、连续切片 FIB-SEM 断层扫描、电子背散射衍射以及最终的 TEM 元素分析都应用于同一 3D 区域。这使得我们能够观察到点蚀和晶间腐蚀在多个尺度上的竞争，揭示了不锈钢隐蔽腐蚀坑的结构层次、晶体学和化学性质。通过自动化的相关工作流程以及多尺度或多模态数据集的共同可视化，该技术有望提供在生物学、地质学和材料科学方面的见解，而这些见解是使用单个或多个不相关技术无法实现的。
