Ensuring accurate materialographic preparation of sample material is important to avoid misinterpretations due to preparation artifact like absent edge sharpness, surface damages or material break-outs while surface analysis. For this purpose, two various ways of preparation methods were used to produce an artifact-free metallographic cross-section of porous aluminum-nickel dispersion layers deposited on copper and titanium substrate. Therefore, two different methods such as conventional preparation with a comparison of different mounting systems and a target surfacing system were investigated.

Diverse cold mounting epoxy systems with vacuum infiltration were tested and evaluated with regard to the connection between material and mounting system. An evaluation matrix was created, which includes the appearance of air bubbles, gaps, the infiltration of the porous layer as well as layer break-outs. Here only two mounting systems can convince with an artifact-free surface finish.

For the mounting-system-free preparation method the target surfacing system that utilizes a rotating interchangeable tool with specimen clamping and integrated stereomicroscope was used to prepare the surface. This system allowing an ablation processes in micrometer range to the target point. However, during sample preparation the fixed orientation of the clamping tool (0°, 90°) leads to non-uniform removal and material throw-up on the edges which was getting worse by insufficient adhesion of the dispersion layer to the substrate. Thereby the porous layer was difficult to evaluate.

The insights from these results will give a short guideline for achieving an artifact-free preparation of metallographic cross-sections of aluminum-nickel dispersion layers.