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High quality ion-induced secondary electron imaging for MeV nuclear microprobe applications

2004; American Institute of Physics; Volume: 22; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1116/1.1651549

1520-8567

E. J. Teo, Mark B. H. Breese, Andrew A. Bettiol, F. Watt, L.C. Alves,

Integrated Circuits and Semiconductor Failure Analysis

The image quality of ion-induced secondary electron images generated with a MeV nuclear microprobe has previously been severely limited by the large beam current fluctuations produced by Van de Graaff accelerators. In this article we report the use of a solid state Cockroft–Walton type accelerator (HVEE™ Singletron) to produce high quality secondary electron images in a rapid manner. This has been achieved using a voltage-modulated dc signal imaging process rather than the inefficient pulse counting mode commonly used in nuclear microprobe applications. This is made possible because of the superior voltage stability of the Singletron accelerator resulting in higher ion beam current stability. Excellent topographical contrast has been demonstrated with the newly implemented secondary electron system.