Instrument: Philips XL-30 ESEM-EDX

Techniques: ‘wet’ (low-pressure) mode imaging, EDX spectroscopy

Summary: Thermal barrier coatings, mostly yttrium stabilized ZrO2, are widely used in aerospace turbines. The micrograph shows the surface of a thermal barrier coating grown by PVD (physical vapour deposition), imaged under the ‘wet’ mode. Several other techniques can be used to characterize such coating materials, such as X-ray diffraction techniques to determine the crystalline structure and to measure the residual stresses, EDX spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition.

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