Dear all, Finding the small crystals somewhere on a (large) matrix can sometimes be a real pain in the b*t when trying to make a Raman spectrum. One option would be to isolate a few crystals and put these in a well defined area on a substrate (a flat surface?). That way, the crystals to be studied are isolated and can be found and studied way more easily. What do you do to tackle these problems, and what do you use, for example to fix the crystal(s) to the substrate? Cheers, Herwig Herwig Pelckmans, Belgium

Herwig, We don’t have a problem with locating small areas (crystals, fluid or melt inclusions) in a large matrix, such as a thin section. If you make detailed maps or photos of the thin section or polished section at different scales, i.e., using various objectives on a petrographic microscope (5x, 20x, 50x, 100x), and mark the area of interest on each photo or map, you can easily navigate and find an area as small as a few microns for Raman analysis. Question - does your Raman system have a good quality microscope incorporated into the system? If not, that will make finding a small area more difficult. Bob > On Jun 1, 2022, at 3:56 PM, Herwig Pelckmans via MSA-talk <msa-talk@minlists.org> wrote: > > Dear all, > Finding the small crystals somewhere on a (large) matrix can sometimes be a real pain in the b*t when trying to make a Raman spectrum. > One option would be to isolate a few crystals and put these in a well defined area on a substrate (a flat surface?). > That way, the crystals to be studied are isolated and can be found and studied way more easily. > > What do you do to tackle these problems, and what do you use, for example to fix the crystal(s) to the substrate? > Cheers, Herwig > Herwig Pelckmans, Belgium > _______________________________________________ > MSA-talk mailing list -- msa-talk@minlists.org > To unsubscribe send an email to msa-talk-leave@minlists.org Robert Bodnar