US Patent Issued to JEOL on Dec. 16 for "Sample milling apparatus, shield plate, and sample milling method" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,500,059, issued on Dec. 16, was assigned to JEOL Ltd. (Tokyo).

"Sample milling apparatus, shield plate, and sample milling method" was invented by Munehiro Kozuka (Tokyo), Tsutomu Negishi (Tokyo) and Tatsuhito Kimura (Tokyo).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "There is provided a sample milling apparatus capable of mitigating heat damage to a sample. The apparatus mills the sample by irradiating it with an ion beam and includes: an ion source for emitting the ion beam; and a shield plate placed on the sample and covering a part of the sample. The shield plate includes: a shield surface on which the ion beam impinges; and a bottom surface conne...