Asbestos particles are toxic and their characterization with fast and reliable techniques is very important for health inspection labs; standard EDS microanalysis in TEM and SEM microscopes is generally used for particle identification .Several phases may be present in a sample ( chrysotile , crocidolite, amosite etc...) all having different crystal structures and their identification is usually done by EDS spectra comparison with standards, however this procedure is not  totally reliable and is very slow.

Using ASTAR  the area containing several asbestos crystals is scanned with TEM beam ( center ) and ED patterns are collected  with a dedicated CCD camera mounted in front of the TEM screen ( left ).  Data collection can be as fast  as 5-10 min ( camera collects up to 120 ED patterns/sec).