The cracking of materials and fracture surface is of great practical and academic importance. Over the last few years the development of the fractography of crystalline alloys resulted in a useful tool for the prediction or failure analysis. Many attempts have been made to observe cracks using optical microscopy, X-ray topography and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Of these techniques, the resolution of optical microscopy and X-ray topography is too poor. By contrast, the resolution of TEM is high enough for detailed information to be obtained. However, in order to apply TEM observations, a thin foil specimen must be prepared, and it is usually extremely difficult to prepare such a specimen from a pre-selected region containing a crack.
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