Apertures

Agar Scientific has a wide range of high quality disc apertures and thin foil apertures for use in electron microscopes, and Focus Ion Beam, microprobe and X-ray systems. Disc apertures are manufactured to tight tolerances with precision drilled holes. They are usually made from a platinum/iridium alloy 95:5% or molybdenum, although tantalum can be supplied for some applications. Platinum apertures can be made with hole sizes down to 5μm diameter whereas the smallest size for molybdenum is 10μm. Agar thin film apertures are frequently used in the objective lenses of high resolution and electron beam lithography instruments. These apertures have the advantage that they heat up in the beam and are effectively self cleaning. Agar apertures are made to exceptionally high standards and are only accepted after examination in the TEM to check the perfection of the edge of the hole, its roundness and absence of pin holes in the vicinity.

We maintain a stock of all the regularly used aperture sizes with disc diameters and thicknesses to suit all current EM systems. We also have apertures for systems which are no longer manufactured but are still in use.

Tantalum apertures
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Tantalum final apertures are for SEM use where X-ray analysis of biological material is being undertaken.
Wehnelt apertures
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Replaceable apertures for the Wehnelt cylinder can be supplied to fit some microscopes.
Multi-hole strip apertures
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Three-hole and four-hole strip apertures are commonly used in Hitachi, ISI/ABT/Topcon and JEOL instruments.
Electroformed aperture strips
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Aperture strips with hole dimensions of less than 10µm are extremely difficult to produce by conventional mechanical methods.
Top hat screening apertures
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Top hat screening apertures.
Thin film apertures
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Thin film apertures are frequently used in the objective lenses of high resolution and electron beam lithography instruments.
Stainless steel discs
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These stainless steel discs have etched holes and are mainly used for gas flow control, pressure testing and filtering of particles.
Apertures with large diameters - 30mm dia, 0.6mm thick
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Apertures with 30mm diameters x 0.6mm thick. Platinum and Molybdenum
Apertures with large diameters - 30mm dia, 0.25mm thick
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Apertures with 30mm diameters x 0.25mm thick. Molybdenum
Apertures with square holes - 2mm dia, 0.6mm thick
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Apertures with square holes manufactured from platinum.
Apertures with square holes - 3.04mm dia, 0.25mm thick
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Apertures with square holes manufactured from platinum.