SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY

Dr Nic Meller
Centre for Materials Science & Engineering Edinburgh University

WHY BOTHER? Machinery Failure Product Failure R&D

Failure under Tensile Stress

500m 500m

Steel 0.8* > Carbide, Fe3C

Steel 0.1* Ferrite, Fe

50m

50m
*Weight % Carbon

OPTICAL VS ELECTRON MICROSCOPY

OPTICAL VS ELECTRON MICROSCOPY Light Microscope Scanning Electron Microscope

Radiolarian, taken from Goldstein et al. (1992)

SOURCE OF ELECTRONS

Filament Wehnelt Cap Anode Vacuum

ELECTRON GUN

The Filament
Thermionic Emission Tungsten, Lanthanum Boride Field Emission Gun
Tungsten Wire LaB6 Crystal

ELECTRON GUN

Wehnelt Cap
negative bias

Anode
positive bias

Vacuum

FOCUSSING DEVICES

Electromagnetic Lens

Improved depth of focus

INTERACTION WITH MATTER

Secondary electrons
topography

Back scatter electrons

compositional

X-rays
chemistry

IMAGE FORMATION

SCAN COILS DETECTORS

Secondary Back scatter

X-rays

WORKING WITH AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Sample Prep
size metals vs non metals coating: Au or C

WORKING WITH AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Beam Saturation Voltage Magnification Spot Size

WORKING WITH AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Working Distance

SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY

Source of electrons Focussing electrons Interaction of electrons with matter Detectors Specimen prep Microscope operation

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SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY

Thursday 31st October or Friday 1st November February in Geology & Geophysics

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