Artefact-free preparation and characterisation of ceramic materials and interfaces

In the development and evaluation of high-performance ceramic materials characterisation of microstructures and interfaces is indispensable for providing information about preparation and production processes and behaviour in application. However, conventional grinding and polishing processes cannot be easily used to prepare granules, green bodies, composites or multilayer systems. The present work gives an overview of the possibilities of ion beam prep-aration methods for high-resolution imaging and quantification of ceramic microstructures and interfaces.