Malachite [Cu (CO )(OH) ] is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral formed as a secondary mineral when copper minerals are altered by environmental chemicals. During formation, other elements such as Mg, Al, Si, and Fe can be incorporated as inclusions. Tracking the spatial relationships between chemistry and microstructure is key to interpreting the history of secondary mineralization and the relative timing of crystal growth.

The Axia ChemiSEM provides a new approach to mineral characterization. A large-scale chemical overview was acquired using Navigation Montage combined with live quantitative elemental mapping, providing a rapid picture of elemental distribution across the full sample surface. Within the same acquisition, individual elements could be selected or deselected to highlight compositional differences between regions indistinguishable by BSE contrast alone. Point & ID analyses confirmed at least three distinct phases — differentiated by Al, Mg, and Si distributions — within inclusions that appeared identical in conventional BSE imaging. The entire characterization from overview to point quantification was conducted in a single software environment without re-acquiring images or changing acquisition parameters.

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are critical protective systems applied to aerospace engine components to enable operation at temperatures exceeding the limits of the underlying metal. A TBC system consists of a ceramic top coat (~500 μm), an oxidation-resistant metallic bond coat (~200 μm), and a Ni-based superalloy substrate — all of which must maintain integrity under extreme cyclic thermal loading up to 1700°C, such as in the Pratt & Whitney JT11D afterburner engine used in the SR-71 aircraft.

Characterization of a thermally fatigued TBC fragment — from an aircraft with more than 15,000 flight hours — was performed using the Axia ChemiSEM. A large-area ChemiSEM image was acquired by collecting a 7×7 tile montage with 5 integrated frames per ROI, completed in approximately 30 minutes. The resulting image simultaneously revealed the distribution of Zr, Mg, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, W, and Al across all layers, immediately highlighting an inhomogeneous interface between the bond coat and top coat from extensive thermal cycling. This interface degradation — a precursor to delamination — was directly visible in the ChemiSEM image and guided subsequent high-magnification drift-corrected EDS analyses of the γ and γ' phases in the Ni-based superalloy.

U-Pb dating is the most widely applied age-determination method in metamorphic and igneous rock research. The target minerals — zircon, monazite, and titanite (5–60 μm) — preserve complex age domains recording geologically important events. A critical bottleneck in geochronological workflows is efficiently locating dateable mineral populations across large polished sample surfaces, as insufficient sampling leads to bias in age interpretation and provenance studies.

A new zircon and monazite dating protocol was developed using the Axia ChemiSEM, combining large-area ChemiSEM phase mapping with cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging. The three-step workflow begins with automated low-magnification SEM-EDS phase mapping of the entire sample, simultaneously highlighting the position of zircon (Zr), monazite (Ce, La), and titanite (Ti) across the full surface. This ChemiSEM overview navigates to the second step: high-magnification BSE imaging and ChemiSEM point & ID quantification of individual grains. The third step integrates CL imaging using the retractable solid-state CL detector (10 keV, four R-G-B-Pan channels) for textural information on zircon growth zones and crystal defects invisible to EDS. Combining ChemiSEM and CL in one workflow eliminates the need for separate instruments and dramatically increases the number of datable grains identified per session.