Correlative Characterization of Materials

The complex questions in materials science and the requirements for new materials are constantly increasing and, as a result, more and more complex combinations of methods are required for a thorough understanding of material´s structure and properties. Therefore, correlative characterization approaches are becoming increasingly important: different material parameters and results obtained using a variety of methods on the same sample at an identical location need to be directly correlated as well as measurements at different length scales from defined sample areas. The core idea is to combine complementary methods for characterizing a sample to enable a deeper understanding of the material.

The challenges in correlative characterization are manifold. On the one hand there are technical and mechanical requirements, such as the development of special sample holders and corresponding markers, which enable a transfer between the different measuring systems and the precise retrieval of defined sample areas. On the other hand, there are challenges when correlating different measurements, such as determining offsets and distortions between measurements or adapting for different pixel sizes. When making the transition from surface measurements to measurements in the bulk, full 3D navigation is required and not ‘just’ planar referencing. In addition to the technical and mechanical requirements and the challenges of data processing, another important aspect is data management. This is important already for a normal, non-correlative material characterization, but it is all the more critical in correlative characterization. The data from the different experiments must be combined and stored in a single data set in such a way that they can be assigned to the individual sample areas, an exact history of the characterization and data processing steps can be traced, complementary information can be identified and the data needs to satisfy the FAIR principles.

In the focus field correlative characterization, we are working on these different development aspects and apply correlative characterization techniques to answer questions in a wide range of application fields.