JEOL 840A Operating Instructions

Please refer to the JEOL840A Instructions (No. ISU840A-1) in the

cabinet for the description of components: Section 3, Composition and
Construction.

Check-in

Initial Settings
  X-ray detector is beyond 12 cm
 CURRENT meter is lit (2nd operation panel), select EMISSION
 fill in the log and record the Time in

Top Panel
 DISPLAY MODE—
NORMAL engaged, CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS fully
counterclockwise
 IMAGE SELECTOR—INV off, SEI engaged, select Analog (under
AUX)
 AFD—off
 DZM—DUAL/ZOOM: off
 PCD—PCD disengaged, select internal
 SRT—SCAN ROTATION off and zero, TILTING CORRECT fully
counterclockwise

Second Operation Panel

 POSITION—X 12 o’clock, Y 12 o’clock
 WIDTH—X 12 o’clock, Y fully clockwise
 VIDEO CONTROL—GAMMA off, DIFF fully counter-clockwise
 DETECTOR off, COLLECTOR on, PMT LINK on

First Operation Panel

 SCAN MODE—PIC, SCAN SPEED—SLOW 1
 MAGNIFICATION—300 000× (see left LED display on
2nd Operation Panel)
 EOS—SEM
  ACCEL VOLTAGE—FILAMENT fully counter-clockwise

Stage Controls

 WORKING DISTANCE (WD)—39 mm

 TILT—000
 Y—35.0, Z—3, X—25.0
 ROTATION—000
Specimen loading
Caution: Gloves are required to handle the specimen holder and
working inside the specimen chamber!
1. mount sample stub in the brass carrier and fasten the set screws
commonly used sample stub options
stub
diamete
style adapter carrier
r
(mm)
1
uses a slotted set screw to hold the 12.5 mm cylinder in place
2
uses 2 Phillips screws to hold the 32 mm cylinder

12.5 mm brass adapter

12.7 pin small1
with hex set screw
32 mm 4-place aluminum adapter
12.7 pin large2
with slotted set screws
12.5 cylinder -- small
32 cylinder -- large
2. Optional: measure total specimen + stub height above rim of
brass carrier so you can correct for the working distance with
the Z stage control
3. loading the specimen chamber

i. on the VACUUM SYSTEM control panel beneath the

column, press the SPEC button to dump the vacuum of the
specimen chamber; emission meter light on the 2nd
operation panel will go off
ii. after a couple minutes, nitrogen will flush the chamber to
release the front cover

iii. wait until the nitrogen flow stops, gently pull the front
cover away from the column until you have a clear access to
the stage
 iv. slide the specimen holder onto the dovetail of the holder
mount on the stage
v. check to see if the o-ring on the chamber and mating
surface on the front cover are clean
vi. gently push the cover in to close the chamber and make
sure you do not pinch the silver cable on the right
vii. hold the chamber close and press the SPEC button on the
VACUUM SYSTEM control panel beneath the column to
evacuate specimen chamber
viii. the system is ready when the emission meter light comes
back on
Optional: for the 4-place specimen adapter, adjust the X
and/or Y stage controls by ± 5 units to bring one of the
specimen stubs under the electron beam

Column Conditions
1. adjust specimen WD based on the need for depth of focus or
resolution
Caution: DO NOT position specimen closer than 10 mm to the
final lens
2. adjust COARSE FOCUS so WD (see central LED display on
2nd Operation Panel) approximates the actual distance between
the specimen and final lens
3. select desired accelerating voltage (kV)
4. with GUN BIAS on MANUAL, adjust bias as posted
Caution: NEVER use bias 0; when in doubt, use the higher of the
two biases

Filament Saturation
1. set MAGNIFICATION to 200×
2. set PROBE CURRENT with coarse knob to 1 × 10-10 A (see central
LED display on 2nd Operation Panel)
3. SCAN MODE—engage RDC and LSP
4. SCAN SPEED—engage SR
5. DISPLAY MODE—set CONTRAST to ~1 o’clock and
increase BRIGHTNESS until a line profile is just visible on the CRT
6. adjust line scan profile to lower 1/3 of CRT with SE
IMAGE BRIGHTNESS
7. adjust SE IMAGE CONTRAST to 7 on dial (can adjust it later in
step 12 below to make the LSP easier to read)
8. set DETECTOR switch to SEI
9. press ACCEL VOLTAGE ON button
10. adjust metal stop on FILAMENT knob to 1 o’clock
11. watch the CURRENT METER and slowly (~ 5 s/div)
turn FILAMENT knob clockwise until the needle just registers
12. while observing line scan profile (LSP) on the display,
continue turning FILAMENT knob clockwise until LSP rises slightly
(~ 11 o'clock), reach the first peak (~ 12 o'clock)
Note: If the LSP peaks are too high or too noisy, reduce SE
IMAGE CONTRAST; otherwise increase to make the LSP easier to
read.
13. sharpen peaks of line scan profile
with COARSE and FINE FOCUS and, if necessary, adjust stage
controls to move sample beneath beam to create a line scan
profile with some amplitude
 14. continue turning FILAMENT knob clockwise, the line scan
profile will fall and then rise again (~ 12:15) to a persistent
current point or saturation (~12:30)
Note: The saturation point is where you can turn back
the FILAMENT knob by just a tad and the LSP will drop.
15. beam current should be < 100 µA; if > 100 µA, turn
down FILAMENT, increase BIAS to reduce beam current and
resaturate
16. optimize height of LSP with GUN ALIGNMENT TILT knobs,
(X&Y) but DO NOT ADJUST GUN ALIGNMENT SHIFT KNOBS
17. for routine SE imaging, lower FILAMENT CURRENT below
saturation slightly (the effective saturation point); but DO NOT
reduce current for energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) or
backscattered imaging (BEI)
18. adjust METAL STOP of FILAMENT knob to touch pointer of
knob
19. lower SE IMAGE CONTRAST until all contrast LED’s are off
and adjust SE IMAGE BRIGHTNESS until 1st of the upper red trio
of LED’s is lit

Display an Image on CRT

1. DISPLAY MODE—decrease BRIGHTNESS to 1 o’clock position
2. SCAN MODE—release RDC and engage PIC
Note: If you plan on using the DSG to take pictures, this is a good
time to wake up or turn on the computer if it is off, or restart it if
it is torpid.

Optimize the beam

Centering Objective Aperture
Note: Aperture 3 is used ~95 % of the time (aperture size: 4 is 50 µm,
3 is 70 µm, 2 is 110 µm, and 1 is 170 µm). The suggested optimal
aperture, OPTI-AP is shown on the central LED display of the 2nd
operation panel. If needed, rotate the OBJECTIVE APERTURE SELECTOR
on the column to select a different size aperture. You must return the
aperture setting to 3 when your session is over.
1. set IMAGE SHIFT X and Y to 12 o'clock
2. SCAN SPEED—press SR
3. EOS MODE—engage SEM1
4. center a small roundish object on the viewing CRT with the
mechanical stage control
5. set MAGNIFICATION at 7000 to 10 000× (or higher, depending on
sample and kV), and focus
6. DISPLAY MODE—engage D-MAG
7. engage the wobbler with the WOBB button and adjust
the AMPLITUDE knob so that the image goes over and under
focus
8. adjust the 2 OBJECTIVE APERTURE CENTERING knobs on the
OBJECTIVE APERTURE SELECTOR to eliminate any lateral shift of
the defocused image
9. set the AMPLITUDE knob fully counterclockwise
10. disengage WOBB
Optional: Go to #7 of Stigmation below to correct for
astigmatism.
11. restore EOS MODE to SEM
12. disengage D-MAG
Stigmation
Note: Astigmatism correction has less impact on images under 1000×.
1. set IMAGE SHIFT X and Y to 12 o'clock
2. SCAN SPEED—press SR
3. EOS MODE—engage SEM1
4. center a small roundish object on the viewing CRT with the
mechanical stage control
5. set MAGNIFICATION at 5000 to 10 000× (should be slightly
higher than the max. magnification you plan to use), and focus
6. DISPLAY MODE—engage D-MAG
7. rotate the FOCUS FINE knob from under to over focus to check
for directional blurring
8. if there is any directional blurring, rotate the
STIGMATORS X and Y to achieve maximum clarity
9. repeat #7-#8 several times until there is no perceivable
directional blurring
10. restore EOS MODE to SEM
11. disengage D-MAG

Taking Digital Photographs using the Digital Scan

Generator
1. turn on the DSG power supply with the toggle switch on the back
and press the orange ENABLE button on the front
2. launch the DSG software on the PC by double clicking its icon on
the desktop
3. set the default path for saving your files: File | select default path
4. select an image size and scan time
 Optimal scan time
image size (pixels) scan time (S)1
1
The quality and dynamic range can be improved with longer scan times.

640×480 80
1280×960 160
2560×1920 640

5. generate a preview image with the preview button

6. adjust SE IMAGE BRIGHTNESS and SE IMAGE CONTRAST to obtain
an adequate dynamic range, i.e., the waveform spanning just
more than 3/4 of the whole range
Note: The waveform monitor on the lower pane of the preview
window represents the intensity of the secondary electrons as the
beam scans across the sample in each raster
line. CONTRAST controls the range of the waveform
and BRIGHTNESS offsets it; the closer it is to the bottom red line,
the darker will be the image. The dynamic range varies with the
scan time. At shorter scan times, the waveform only spans about
2/3 of the range even with CONTRAST at 10 or max.
7. close the preview window
8. click the scan button to capture the image
9. when the scan is done, the system will prompt you to enter any
image information you wish to record in a text file, and will place
an appropriate scale bar on the image according to the
magnification you entered
Note: The scale bar becomes part of the image and cannot be
moved. If you do not want a scale bar, click cancel to dismiss the
dialog box. You can add a scale bar later with the information
 described in the magnification calibration page as long as you
know the displayed magnification and the original image size.
10. select FILE | SAVE AS, provide a file name (max. 8 characters
and a 3 character extension) and select the desirable file type
(TIFF is the most popular choice)

Specimen Removal/Exchange and SEM check-out

1. DISPLAY MODE—turn BRIGHTNESS & CONTRAST fully
counterclockwise
2. DISPLAY MODE—disengage D-MAG
3. SLOWLY (~5 s/div) turn FILAMENT knob fully counterclockwise
4. disengage ACCEL VOLTAGE ON button
5. set DETECTOR to OFF
6. set MAG to 300 000×
7. SCAN SPEED—engage SLOW 1
8. stage controls
o WORKING DISTANCE (WD)—39 mm
o TILT—000
o Y—35.0
o Z—3
o X—25.0
o ROTATION—000
9. unload your sample as described in Specimen loading
10. load another sample to get more data; otherwise, proceed
with check-out
11. on the DSG power supply, disengage ENABLE and turn
power off
 12. upload your images to ours or your own file server
(SSH/SFTP)
13. record the Time Out and complete the log
14. clean up the work area

Appendix
 Add spatial calibration
o DSG generated TIFF does not have any provision for
metadata e.g., display magnification or spatial calibration
o if the display magnification is known, spatial calibration can
be added manually or via simple macros in ImageJ
 a macro that asks for the display magnification and
then sets the scale
 another macro that sets the scale after parsing the
filename encoded with the display magnification
 yet another macro that sets the scale after parsing the
filename encoded with the display magnification
recursively in a folder; beware that the macro will add
metadata and overwrite the original files
 Stage tilt
o range decreases with larger stub size and shorter working
distance
o increase in tilt brings the top left edge of the specimen
toward the observer, example below shows the tilt range of
a 12 mm stub at 25× and WD 39 mm

0° tilt

15° tilt
30° tilt

45° tilt

60° tilt

75° tilt