The usual method to prepare specimen for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with an ultramicrotome (UM) is to embed a small piece of the sample in a resin which needs between hours and days to harden. Then the resin is trimmed and finally the thin sections are cut. We developed a method to produce cross sections with an UM without embedding the sample. This leads to first TEM pictures in less then 30 minutes after the end of the thin film production.

We produce neutron mirrors which consist of metallic monolayers (figl) or multilayers (fig.2). The materials we use are mostly cobalt-iron alloys and silicon. The quality of the mirrors critically depends on the structural and hence also on the magnetic properties which are strongly influenced by the settings of the sputter parameters (plasma current, pressure of the working gas, substrate temperature, sputtering high voltage). To find out the best parameters for each purpose a quick analysing method is needed for a fast feedback