History of SEM

Basic construction of SEM

Construction of an electron gun
Construction of magnetic lens
Formation of electron probe by lenses
Construction of specimen stage
Construction of secondary electron
detector
Concept of SEM magnification
Relation between the aperture angle of the
electron probe and the depth of focus
Difference in the depth of focus between SEM
and Optical microscope
OM image and SEM image of same
field of view
Monte Carlo simulation showing the scattering
behavior of electrons within the specimen.
 Emission of various electrons and
electromagnetic waves from the specimen
Energy distribution of electrons
emitted from the specimen
 Relation between the incidence angle of the
electron probe and the secondary electron yield
Secondary electron image of tungsten
oxide crystal
 Backscattered electrons

Atomic number dependence of backscattered electron Example of a backscattered electron image

intensity Specimen: Magnetic head for a hard disk
Relation between the electron-probe incidence
angle and the backscattered electron intensity
Relationship between crystal orientation
and backscattered electron intensity:
Edge effect:
 Overlap of the internal structural
information on the surface image.
Difference in the contrast of secondary electron images depending
on the accelerating voltage
~Specimen Plate-like crystals of boron nitride
Illumination effect of secondary
electron detector
Illumination effect of Backscattered
electron detector:
 Resolution & resolving power:
Gold particles evaporated on a carbon plate. Two arrows indicate that the distance between two points are about 1 nm
(resolution of 1 nm).
Improvement in resolution
The SEM resolution is determined by the
diameter of the electron probe.

Change of the electron-probe diameter when

the strength of the condenser lens is changed

Consequently, the combination of the FE

gun and a higher-performance objective lens
provides an extremely high resolution
 Types of electron guns:
Field emission electron gun:
Schottky emission electron gun:
Features of electron guns:
 Types and capabilities of objective
lenses:

Objective-lens aberrations
and electron-probe diameter.
Conventional objective lens:
Strongly excited objective lens for high
resolution
Relation between the accelerating
voltage and the resolution
Relation between the probe current
and the probe diameter.
 Charging and its influence:
Electric flow in a non-conductive specimen.
 Influence of charging in SEM

Distortion of SEM image caused by the charging Anomalous contrast due to the charging
 Prevention from charging
1. Coating:
1. Low-vacuum SEM (LVSEM)

High vacuum Low vacuum

 Basics of elemental analysis
Energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS):
Wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometer (WDS):
Features of EDS & WDS