FEI has announced the Fibermetric system powered by the Phenom personal electron microscope.
The Fibermetric system is designed to discover and quantify the properties of woven and non-woven fibre samples in minutes.
'This is a turnkey system for sub-micron fiber imaging and automated measurement,' said Paul Scagnetti, vice-president and general manager, Industry Division of FEI.
'Synthetic fibre manufacturers will typically forego the measurement of sub-micron fibres and pores, suffering the process control and product quality consequences, or they may use a more expensive and complex electron microscope in the lab, which can take several days before the data is available to those who need it.
'With the Fibermetric system, engineers can get the data they need themselves,' he added.
The system automatically collects hundreds of measurements per image, and generates fibre and pore size distribution plots for quality control and for predicting application properties such as filtration efficiency.
The Fibermetric system requires no laboratory infrastructure or specially trained personnel.
It has a sample loading time of less than 30 seconds, and its automated measurement capability generates statistically valid data in the time it takes to load a conventional scanning electron microscope (SEM).
Magnifications up to 24,000 times produce accurate information on fibres as small as 100nm in diameter.
The Fibermetric system accurately images and measures almost any fibre sample with its 4.9nm/pixel resolution and a Gaussian fit function, which automatically finds and measures fibres and pores.
Nano-fibres with diameters of 100nm are routinely measured with greater than 97 per cent accuracy, it is claimed.
