  Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are currently supporting
ground-breaking basic research in materials science and metallurgy as they
allow in situ experiments on materials at the nanoscale within
electron-microscopes in a wide variety of different conditions such as extreme
materials dynamics under ultrafast heating and quenching rates as well as in
complex electro-chemical environments. Electron-transparent sample preparation
for MEMS e-chips remains a challenge for this technology as the existing
methodologies can introduce contaminants, thus disrupting the experiments and
the analysis of results. Herein we introduce a methodology for simple and fast
electron-transparent sample preparation for MEMS e-chips without significant
contamination. The quality of the samples as well as their performance during a
MEMS e-chip experiment in situ within an electron-microscope are evaluated
during a heat treatment of a crossover AlMgZn(Cu) alloy.
