Beam deceleration boosts resolution: News from Hitachi High-Technologies (Electron Microscopy)

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Beam deceleration technology is now an option for the S-4800 field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) from Hitachi High-Technologies. This offers even better resolution capabilities at low accelerating voltages, with an improvement in resolution of 30% to 1.4nm at 1kV. This means even better quality imaging for a host of applications in life science and semiconductors as well as less beam damage during the observation of uncoated samples.

The S-4800 can accommodate samples up to 200mm diameter, yet offers near in-lens resolution capabilities thanks to its novel electron optical design, ultraclean pumping and antivibration stage design.

The beam deceleration option makes use of the fact that the higher accelerating voltage in the primary beam the lower the chromatic aberration and thus smaller spot sizes can be achieved.

Therefore the new option uses a higher primary accelerating voltage and then decelerates the beam just before it interacts with the sample by applying a negative voltage to the sample.

The net "landing voltage", which is the effective accelerating voltage at the specimen is the difference between the primary beam voltage and the applied sample voltage.

In addition to producing images with the resolution characteristics of the primary beam, the image also has the topographic characteristics of the low voltage image, resulting in enhanced surface detail.

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