Airtight container for the transfer of atmosphere-sensitive materials into vacuum-operated characterization instruments

This paper describes the design and operation of a simple airtight container devised to facilitate the transfer of atmosphere-sensitive samples from a glovebox to the vacuum chamber of an analytical instrument such as a scanning electron microscope. The use of this device for characterizing the microstructure of highly hygroscopic strontium iodide ceramics by scanning electron microscopy is illustrated as an application example. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3669784]