-
Mechanical Microscopy of Surface Treatments: Nitrided Steels
Surface treatments, such as nitriding, coatings, and shot peening, are invaluable to industry as a method to improve the functional and mechanical behavior of parts without changing the primary material. Nitriding is a surface heat treatment process by which significant case hardening can be achieved by diffusing nitrogen into parts through gas, salt baths, or plasma nitriding treatments. Nitrogen, as a very light element, is challenging to directly characterize, so hardness profiles have traditionally been a primary method for characterizing the effectiveness of nitriding treatments. Cross-sectional mechanical microscopy was performed on a gas nitrided 31CrMoV9 steel. Mechanical microscopy reveals the presence of two layers within the surface white layer of…
-
Meso-Scale Mechanical Microscopy of Additively-Manufactured Steel with Site-Specific Properties
Mechanical microscopy allows the imaging of mechanical property variations at multiple length scales. Nanoindentation mapping is usually performed at the microstructural length scale, but many manufacturing processes create property variations on larger scales, e.g. case hardening, nitriding, or designed variations through additive manufacturing. In this application note, we demonstrate how mechanical microscopy can be performed at larger length scales to investigate these features. This is used to investigate the printed-in variation in mechanical properties created by a novel additive manufacturing process. This is only possible using an indentation system with a combination of high system stiffness, a high load range, and fast dynamics to allow rapid indentations to large depths.…
-
witec360 Raman Mikroskop mit Hexalight Spektrometer gelauncht
Das Raman Imaging Team von Oxford Instruments stellt eine optimierte Mikroskop-Plattform mit einem neuen und innovativen Spektrometer vor: witec360 und Hexalight. Gemeinsam bilden das witec360 Raman Mikroskop und das Hexalight Spektrometer das bislang fortschrittlichste konfokale Raman Imaging System, das jemals entwickelt wurde. Das neue witec360 Raman Mikroskop ist eine Weiterentwicklung der bekannten alpha300 Serie, die sich vor allem durch einen höheren Lichtdurchsatz und verbesserte Automatisierung auszeichnet. Es bündelt die jahrelange Innovationsstärke des Branchenpioniers WITec, welcher 2021 Teil der Oxford Instruments Gruppe wurde und dessen technologische Errungenschaften im Produktnamen gewürdigt werden. Oxford Instruments‘ witec360 führt die große Leistungsfähigkeit, Modularität und Vielseitigkeit der bisherigen WITec alpha300 Serie fort. Es bietet Konfigurationen mit…
-
witec360 Raman microscope with Hexalight spectrometer launched
Oxford Instruments’ Raman imaging team announces a refreshed core microscope line and a groundbreaking new spectrometer: Hexalight. Together, the witec360 microscope and Hexalight spectrometer constitute the most advanced confocal Raman imaging system yet devised. The witec360 Raman microscope is an evolution from the alpha300 series. Introducing improved light transmission and enhanced automation. It consolidates years of innovation from pioneering company WITec, which became part of Oxford Instruments in 2021, and whose legacy is honoured in the product name. All the performance, modularity, and versatility of the previous WITec alpha300 series lives on within the Oxford Instruments witec360 ecosystem, which encompasses standard and inverted beam path versions, dedicated and correlative configurations,…
-
New Cypher VRS1250 Video-Rate Atomic Force Microscope Enables True Video-Rate Imaging at up to 45 Frames per Second
Oxford Instruments Asylum Research today announced the launch of the new Cypher VRS1250 video-rate atomic force microscope (AFM). Twice as fast as the first-generation Cypher VRS, the new AFM enables scan rates up to 1250 lines/second and frame rates up to 45 frames/second. This new higher speed will enable researchers to capture nanoscale details of dynamic events that were previously inaccessible, including biochemical reactions, 2D molecular self-assembly, and etch and dissolution processes and more. The Cypher VRS1250 is unique among high-speed AFM’s in that it can also support a full range of modes and accessories, not just high-speed imaging, which makes it a very versatile tool for large interdisciplinary research…
