JEOL ships cloth gloves with their probes. I assume these would be acceptable for sample changes and day to day activities. I would keep nitrile gloves on hand for other purposes, of course. But do we really need them for sample changes?
Great question. I think it all depends on the person.
Many years ago when I was taking a class in vacuum technology at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, the instructor had us each place a fingerprint on separate glass slides and then placed them one at a time in a vacuum chamber and used a residual gas analyzer (RGA) to look at the volatiles.
Most of my classmates had sky high readings from their fingers, but I was told I was born to be a vacuum technician because my fingers were "bone dry".
![Grin ;D](https://probesoftware.com/smf/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
But in any case I think cloth gloves should be fine for changing EPMA samples, especially since the microprobe isn't technically an ultra high vacuum instrument.