Cryosectioning

Abstract

The internal features of any object may be exposed, either by more or less randomly fracturing or breaking open the specimen, or by sectioning it at more precisely determined places. It is possible to distinguish between fracturing and cutting. The former is a brittle breakage of the crystalline components with plastic deformation only occurring at a molecular level, while the latter is a flow process involving extensive plastic deformation of the crystallites and possibly melting due to friction and/or local pressure. In fracturing, the initial crack propagates some distance ahead of where the force is being exerted. In cutting processes, the separation of the sample occurs at the knife edge itself. The exposed internal surfaces may either be replicated or studied directly by a wide variety of techniques, many of which are discussed in an earlier book by Echlin (1984).