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In this study, based on a comprehensive numerical simulation of self-consistent charging, we investigate the formation, evolution and influencing factors of space charge distributions for a grounded insulating thin film of SiO2 negatively charged by a keV non-penetrating focused electron beam. The simulated space charge presents first positive distributions and then negative ones along both the radial and depth directions because of the difference between electron and hole transports. The variations in distribution occur within a range of the minimum potential acting as a potential barrier for carrier transport. The negative space charge is distributed more widely and deeply, though its peak value in density is usually lower than that of the positive one. Electrons trapped outside the minimum potential range dominate the strength of negative charging. With the increase in potential barrier and the occurrence of leakage current, the space charge eventually reaches equilibrium and exhibits an approximately one-dimensional axial distribution outside the minimum potential range. Distribution features of the space charge density in the equilibrium state correlate with the film and beam parameters via transients of the leakage current. These results and analyses provide new insights into the negative charging effects involved in various electron-beam-based surface microscopic methods, analyses and fabrication techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Image blurring of MeV transmission electrons for gold nanoparticles on the top surface of micrometer-thick specimens has been investigated using the Monte Carlo simulation. Both the simulated line density profile and therefore image blurring were in good agreement with the experimental ones in the ultrahigh voltage electron microscope. Quantitative effects of specimen thickness and electron energy on image blurring were presented, in which the specimen thickness had a greater influence. Image blurring was demonstrated to be caused mainly by multiple elastic scattering, but it could be reduced to several nanometers for a 5 µm thick epoxy-resin specimen at the electron energy of 2 MeV. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We presented an automatic method for detecting and tracking colloidal gold fiducial markers for alignment in electron tomography (ET). The second-order derivative of direction was used to detect a fiducial marker accurately. The detection was optimized to be selective to the size of fiducial markers. A preliminary tracking result from the normalized correlation coefficient was refined using the detector. A constraint model considering the relationship among the fiducial markers on different images was developed for removing outlier. The three-dimensional positions of the detected fiducial markers and the projection parameters of tilt images were calculated for post process. The accuracy of detection and tracking results was evaluated from the residues by the software IMOD. Application on transmission electron microscopic images also indicated that the presented method could provide a useful approach to automatic alignment in ET. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We clarify the scanning electron microscopic contrast mechanism for imaging a buried SiO(2) trench microstructure with interface trapped charges by simulating both electron scattering and transport. Here, the interface trapped charges make the SiO(2) film more negatively charged and increase excess holes in the space charge distribution of the electron scattering region. The generated positive surface electric field thus redistributes some emitted secondary electrons and results in the dark contrast. This contrast mechanism is validated by comparing with experiments, and it may also provide an interesting approach for imaging and detecting deep interface trapped charges in insulating films.

Electron transmission through tilted epoxy-resin film specimens with thicknesses of 1 and 5 microm has been measured under different accelerating voltages and diameters of the objective aperture in a 3 MV ultrahigh voltage electron microscope. Measurements show that the linearity between the logarithmic electron transmission and effective thickness of the tilted specimens holds valid only for some smaller effective thicknesses. However, the higher accelerating voltage leads to a wider linear attenuation range. The linear range can reach 7 microm for the 3 MeV incident electrons. Moreover, the measurements were analyzed with the electron-scattering theory. Actually, the high-energy electrons are capable of penetrating much thicker specimens, but many electrons elastically scattered at large angles cannot be collected as useful signals because of being blocked by the objective aperture in the mode of amplitude contrast. The need for further investigations was suggested to determine theoretically the electron transmission through a thick low-Z specimen and its exponential attenuation range.