Nano-Tip Electron Gun for the Scanning Electron Microscope

Published

January 1, 2006

Author(s)

Andras Vladar, Zsolt Radi, Michael T. Postek, David C. Joy

Abstract

Through this study the most important questions and problems associated with nano-tips and their possible applications to SEMs were investigated. These were related to the tip making procedures, the theoretical assessment of the Hitachi S-6000 critical dimension SEM s electron gun and to the preparation of the SEM for insertion of nano-tips, and finally to the experiments with a nano-tip. Based on the results it appears feasible that   nano-tip gun technology could replace the standard electron source and thus provide increased instrument performance. The result of this work clearly demonstrated that the improvements predicted by the theoretical calculations can actually be achieved in practice. The lifetime and resolution of the nano-tip gun were surprisingly good, which opens the possibility for the development of a new higher-resolution electron gun technology. Continued work is ongoing and it is expected that the next step for the nano-tip will be a test in a more modern cold field emission instrument to determine how far the performance can be pushed.

Citation

Scanning

Volume

28

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

electron gun, metrology, nano-tip, resolution, scanning electron microscope, scanning electron microscopy, SEM

Citation

Vladar, A. , Radi, Z. , Postek, M. and Joy, D. (2006), Nano-Tip Electron Gun for the Scanning Electron Microscope, Scanning (Accessed October 10, 2025)