When cutting a specimen from a larger piece of material, care must be taken to ensure that it is representative of the features found in the larger sample, or that it contains all the information required to investigate a feature of interest.

One problem is that preparation of the specimen may change the microstructure of the material, for example through heating, chemical attack, or mechanical damage. The amount of damage depends on the method by which the specimen is cut and the material itself.

Cutting with abrasives may cause a high amount of damage, while the use of a low-speed diamond saw can lessen the problems. There are many different cutting methods, although some are used only for specific specimen types.

iqualitrol provides the iCut-864 low speed diamond saw for cutting OM (optical microscope), SEM (scanning electron microscope), and even TEM (transmission electron microscope) specimen.