A specialized material engineering laboratory of the Opole University of Technology has been equipped with the Scanning Electron Microscope JSM-840A with the Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) system enabling work at magnifications up to 300,000. times.

The new microscope, in combination with EDS X-ray microanalysis, is a powerful tool allowing to determine the elemental composition of samples with a size of several micrometres or create a map of the distribution of elements in a larger area of the sample with micrometric spatial resolution.

Scanning electron microscopy with the EDS system is a useful and increasingly common technique for characterizing surfaces and structure of materials – mainly morphology and elemental composition. It allows the observation of both organic and mineral samples at very high magnifications, and its use is very wide.