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General Information and Usage:
Drying of delicate specimens in
air or under vacuum can result in serious damage due to
surface tension of liquid filling the voids in specimen
structure. To avoid this CPD 030 dries samples under
critical point (CP) conditions when transfer from liquid to
gaseous phase happens without crossing the phase boundary.
The wet sample is immersed in ethanol that is gradually
replaced with liquid CO2 at a temperature of 10ºC. Liquid
CO2 is then heated and the chamber is pressurized. At a
temperature of 31ºC and pressure of 73.8 bar (CP) liquid CO2
turns into gas. CPD 030 has two heating regimes: normal
heating (default setting) takes ~ 10 minutes and is used for
standard samples, while slow heating takes ~ 30 minutes and
is meant for very delicate samples. A switch located in the
rear of the instrument allows this selection. Upper
temperature limit is set to 40ºC. CPD 030 is able to
accommodate samples up to 22 mm. The following sample
holders are available: 1) holder for samples with a 12 mm
diameter, 2) holder for samples with an 18 mm diameter, and
3) holder for 22 x 22 mm samples.
Contact Information for Users of PRISM Micro/Nano Fabrication Lab:
For additional information regarding the CPD 030, please
contactthe PRISM Staff at: PRISM-CLEANRM-OPS@princeton.edu
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