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About the Mechanisms of Charging in EPMA, SEM, and ESEM with Their Time Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2004

Jacques Cazaux
Jacques Cazaux
Affiliation:
Laboratoire d'Analyse des Solides Surfaces et Interfaces, Faculté des Sciences, Boite Postale 1039, 51687 Reims Cedex 2, France
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Abstract

The physical mechanisms involved in electron irradiation of insulating specimens are investigated by combining some simple considerations of solid-state physics (trapping mechanisms of electrons and secondary electron emission) with basic equations of electrostatics. To facilitate the understanding of the involved mechanisms only widely irradiated samples having a uniform distribution of trapping sites are considered. This starting hypothesis allows development of simple models for the trapped charge distributions in ground-coated specimens as investigated in electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) as well as for the bare specimens investigated in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and environmental SEM (ESEM). Governed by self-regulation processes, the evolution of the electric parameters during the irradiation are also considered for the first time and practical consequences in EPMA, SEM, and ESEM are deduced. In particular, the widespread idea that the noncharging condition of SEM is obtained at a critical energy E2 (where δ + η = 1 with δ and η yields obtained in noncharging experiments) is critically discussed.

Keywords

insulating materialschargingEPMASEMESEMsecondary electron emissionirradiation effects
Type
Research Article
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 10 , Issue 6 , December 2004 , pp. 670 - 684
Copyright
© 2004 Microscopy Society of America

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References

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