Combining electrolytical nickel plating and cavity filling with silver for the preparation of steel samples with large and brittle scale layers

Abstract A new metallographic preparation method for steel samples with large and brittle scale layer is presented. A combination of electrolytical nickel plating, mechanical grinding and polishing as well as conductive silver paste penetration is proposed to protect the samples from corrosion caused by residual water from the preparation as well as to reduce the height difference between base metal scale layer and regions of broken scale. Both measures drastically increase the conductivity of the sample, as local charging on corrosion products as well as on protruding scale parts is prevented. It is demonstrated that the new method enables high quality imaging (secondary electron, back scatter diffraction as well as energy dispersive spectroscopy imaging) without the need for focused ion beam sample preparation, which drastically reduced the necessary time for sample preparation.