tripot polisher

"Tripot polisher" is a mechanical polishing device that consists of three legs with micrometers and a leg for supporting a specimen. First, a bulk specimen is set on the leg for the specimen, and the polishing angle is finely adjusted by the micrometers, the tripot polisher is mounted on a rotational polishing device, and then the specimen is polished while the tripot polisher is supported with human fingers. A thinned specimen with a thickness of ～10 μm can be obtained from a bulk specimen (～3 mm × ～3 mm × ～2 mm thick). As a polishing material, lapping film coated with diamond of 0.1 μm to 30 μm is used. In the finishing process, the polished specimen with a mirror surface is fabricated using colloidal silica. For TEM observation, the specimen is usually polished to wedge-shaped. Normally, the specimen is finished by ion milling. Since the use of the tripot polisher enables preparation of a wedge-shaped specimen over a wide area, the device is particularly suitable for cross-sectional specimen preparation.

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