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The Resolution of the SEM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

David C Joy
David C Joy*
Affiliation:
EM Facility, University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleTN37996-0810and, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN37831
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Extract

The resolution of any microscope is usually taken as the benchmark of its quality. When thinking about the scanning electron microscope(SEM) a comparison of its resolution to the resolutions quot-ed for other comparable instruments such as the transmission EM or the scanning tunneling micro-scope has unfortunately led some users to the view that the SEM is only a second best choice. In fact the spatial resolution that can be anticipated for an optimized SEM is highly competitive with its peers making it clearly the microscopy of choice.

The resolution of the SEM depends on two classes of factors; those which are inherent to the use of electrons as an imaging tool, and those which relate to the performance of the instrumentation (and possibly of the operator) used to perform the microscopy. The use of electrons as the scanning probe, and the choice of secondary electrons as the usual imaging mode, potentially affects the achievable resolution in three ways.

Type
The Limits of Image Resolution: Seeing is Believing
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 3 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '97, Microscopy Society of America 55th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 31st Annual Meeting, Histochemical Society 48th Annual Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, August 10-14, 1997 , August 1997 , pp. 1173 - 1174
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 1997

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References

1.Scheinfein, MR, Drucker, J S, and Weiss, JK, Proc. Ann. MSA Meeting 51 (1993) 766Google Scholar
2.Joy, DC and Pawley, J B, Ultramicroscopy 47 (1993) 8010.1016/0304-3991(92)90186-NCrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Research sponsored by the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Transportation Technologies, as part of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory User Program, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corp. for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC05-96OR22464Google Scholar