Cosmic Dust Catalog Volume 20,1
Processing of Particles
Particle mounts designed for the JEOL 100CX scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) are currently the standard receptacles for CD particles in the JSC laboratory. Each mount consists of a graphite frame (size ~3x6x24 mm) onto which a Nucleopore filter (0.4 μm pore size) is attached. A conductive coat of carbon is vacuum evaporated onto the mount and then a microscopic reference pattern is "stenciled" onto the carbon-coated filter by vacuum evaporation of aluminum through an appropriately sized template. Particles are individually removed from collectors using glass-needle micromanipulators under a binocular stereomicroscope. Each particle is positioned on an aluminum-free area of a Freon-cleaned (Freon 113), carbon-coated filter and washed in place with hexane to remove silicone oil. Each mount is normally limited to 16 particles. All processing and storage of each particle is performed in a Class-100 clean room.