Equipment

Sample Preparation Equipment

Arc Melting Furnace||Used to produce alloy buttons by arc melting metals. The alloy composition and impurity removal at this stage largely determine the quality of the final alloy.
Electric Furnaces||Used for heat treatment of alloys. Various furnaces are available, including high-temperature furnaces and long-term aging furnaces.
Wire Electrical Discharge Machine (Wire-EDM)||Performs complex and precise machining using arc discharge.
Cold Rolling Mill||Used for cold rolling of bulk samples through roll processing.
Rotary Polishing Machine||Used for surface polishing of samples for microstructural observation.

Characterization and Property Evaluation Equipment

Tensile Testing Machine||Used for tensile testing of metallic materials to investigate deformation behavior and mechanical properties.
Fatigue Testing Machine||Evaluates the fatigue properties of metallic materials under cyclic loading.
Optical Microscope||Used for observing surface microstructures of samples. Observation is possible up to 1000× magnification. With the attached XYZ linear stage, precise dimensional measurements can also be performed.
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM-EBSD)||A microscope that observes images obtained from electrons reflected after irradiating the sample with an electron beam. Suitable for observing surface morphology and for crystal orientation analysis.
X-ray Diffractometer (XRD)||Used for phase identification and for examining lattice parameters and crystallographic orientation distributions. Measurements can be performed from low to high temperatures.
Thermomechanical Analyzer (TMA)||Evaluates mechanical properties under varying temperature and load conditions. Shape memory properties can be analyzed from temperature–strain curves.
Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC)||Measures phase transformation temperatures and associated heat in metals. Low- to mid-temperature DSC is used for martensitic transformation temperatures, while high-temperature DSC is used for melting points and order–disorder transformations.
Hardness Tester||Performs indentation hardness tests such as Vickers hardness and Knoop hardness measurements.

Shared Facilities

Electron Probe Microanalyzer (EPMA)||Measures the composition of fabricated alloys, ribbons, thin films, and other materials.
X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS)||Determines elemental composition, chemical bonding states, and electronic states of solid sample surfaces by measuring the kinetic energy of photoelectrons emitted under ultra-high vacuum conditions via the photoelectric effect.
Focused Ion Beam (FIB)||Processes sample surfaces by sputtering with an ion beam. This technique is used to prepare specimens for TEM observation.
Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM)||Observes magnified images formed by electrons transmitted through a sample. With lattice imaging resolution down to 0.1 nm, atomic arrangements can be observed. Using heating and cooling holders, in-situ observation of phase transformations is also possible.