Objective Lens Properties of Very High Excitation

Author(s):  
S. Suzuki ◽  
K. Akashi ◽  
H. Tochigi

Recently the image quality of the electron microscope has been highly improved, because of technical advances made for the exclusion of mechanical and electrical instabilities in the instrument itself. To further improve the resolution, it is important to minimize the chromatic aberration, as well as the spherical aberration. This is true, even though the accelerating voltage has excellent stability; because of the unavoidable velocity fluctuations of electrons, resulting from thermal emission from the cathode, and the energy-loss in the specimen.Therefore, the specimen should be immersed deeply into the lens field, to make these aberrations small. The result will be very high lens excitation. In 1962, Professor E. Ruska and Dr. W. Riecke had investigated the single field condenser-objective lens at the center of which the specimen is placed. Prior to that, in 1960, Dr. S. Suzuki, one of the authors, had pointed out that this new objective lens, in which the specimen is placed at the image side from the center of the lens field,(of the condenser-objective lens: but no special illuminating system is necessary.

Author(s):  
K. Shibatomi ◽  
T. Yamanoto ◽  
H. Koike

In the observation of a thick specimen by means of a transmission electron microscope, the intensity of electrons passing through the objective lens aperture is greatly reduced. So that the image is almost invisible. In addition to this fact, it have been reported that a chromatic aberration causes the deterioration of the image contrast rather than that of the resolution. The scanning electron microscope is, however, capable of electrically amplifying the signal of the decreasing intensity, and also free from a chromatic aberration so that the deterioration of the image contrast due to the aberration can be prevented. The electrical improvement of the image quality can be carried out by using the fascionating features of the SEM, that is, the amplification of a weak in-put signal forming the image and the descriminating action of the heigh level signal of the background. This paper reports some of the experimental results about the thickness dependence of the observability and quality of the image in the case of the transmission SEM.


Author(s):  
David A. Ansley

The coherence of the electron flux of a transmission electron microscope (TEM) limits the direct application of deconvolution techniques which have been used successfully on unmanned spacecraft programs. The theory assumes noncoherent illumination. Deconvolution of a TEM micrograph will, therefore, in general produce spurious detail rather than improved resolution.A primary goal of our research is to study the performance of several types of linear spatial filters as a function of specimen contrast, phase, and coherence. We have, therefore, developed a one-dimensional analysis and plotting program to simulate a wide 'range of operating conditions of the TEM, including adjustment of the:(1) Specimen amplitude, phase, and separation(2) Illumination wavelength, half-angle, and tilt(3) Objective lens focal length and aperture width(4) Spherical aberration, defocus, and chromatic aberration focus shift(5) Detector gamma, additive, and multiplicative noise constants(6) Type of spatial filter: linear cosine, linear sine, or deterministic


Author(s):  
T. Miyokawa ◽  
H. Kazumori ◽  
S. Nakagawa ◽  
C. Nielsen

We have developed a strongly excited objective lens with a built-in secondary electron detector to provide ultra-high resolution images with high quality at low to medium accelerating voltages. The JSM-6320F is a scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) equipped with this lens and an incident beam divergence angle control lens (ACL).The objective lens is so strongly excited as to have peak axial Magnetic flux density near the specimen surface (Fig. 1). Since the speciien is located below the objective lens, a large speciien can be accomodated. The working distance (WD) with respect to the accelerating voltage is limited due to the magnetic saturation of the lens (Fig.2). The aberrations of this lens are much smaller than those of a conventional one. The spherical aberration coefficient (Cs) is approximately 1/20 and the chromatic aberration coefficient (Cc) is 1/10. for accelerating voltages below 5kV. At the medium range of accelerating voltages (5∼15kV). Cs is 1/10 and Cc is 1/7. Typical values are Cs-1.lmm. Cc=l. 5mm at WD=2mm. and Cs=3.lmm. Cc=2.9 mm at WD=5mm. This makes the lens ideal for taking ultra-high resolution images at low to medium accelerating voltages.


Author(s):  
Hannes Lichte

Generally, the electron object wave o(r) is modulated both in amplitude and phase. In the image plane of an ideal imaging system we would expect to find an image wave b(r) that is modulated in exactly the same way, i. e. b(r) =o(r). If, however, there are aberrations, the image wave instead reads as b(r) =o(r) * FT(WTF) i. e. the convolution of the object wave with the Fourier transform of the wave transfer function WTF . Taking into account chromatic aberration, illumination divergence and the wave aberration of the objective lens, one finds WTF(R) = Echrom(R)Ediv(R).exp(iX(R)) . The envelope functions Echrom(R) and Ediv(R) damp the image wave, whereas the effect of the wave aberration X(R) is to disorder amplitude and phase according to real and imaginary part of exp(iX(R)) , as is schematically sketched in fig. 1.Since in ordinary electron microscopy only the amplitude of the image wave can be recorded by the intensity of the image, the wave aberration has to be chosen such that the object component of interest (phase or amplitude) is directed into the image amplitude. Using an aberration free objective lens, for X=0 one sees the object amplitude, for X= π/2 (“Zernike phase contrast”) the object phase. For a real objective lens, however, the wave aberration is given by X(R) = 2π (.25 Csλ3R4 + 0.5ΔzλR2), Cs meaning the coefficient of spherical aberration and Δz defocusing. Consequently, the transfer functions sin X(R) and cos(X(R)) strongly depend on R such that amplitude and phase of the image wave represent only fragments of the object which, fortunately, supplement each other. However, recording only the amplitude gives rise to the fundamental problems, restricting resolution and interpretability of ordinary electron images:


Author(s):  
M. Haider ◽  
P. Hartel ◽  
H. Müller ◽  
S. Uhlemann ◽  
J. Zach

The achievable resolution of a modern transmission electron microscope (TEM) is mainly limited by the inherent aberrations of the objective lens. Hence, one major goal over the past decade has been the development of aberration correctors to compensate the spherical aberration. Such a correction system is now available and it is possible to improve the resolution with this corrector. When high resolution in a TEM is required, one important parameter, the field of view, also has to be considered. In addition, especially for the large cameras now available, the compensation of off-axial aberrations is also an important task. A correction system to compensate the spherical aberration and the off-axial coma is under development. The next step to follow towards ultra-high resolution will be a correction system to compensate the chromatic aberration. With such a correction system, a new area will be opened for applications for which the chromatic aberration defines the achievable resolution, even if the spherical aberration is corrected. This is the case, for example, for low-voltage electron microscopy (EM) for the investigation of beam-sensitive materials, for dynamic EM or for in-situ EM.


Author(s):  
M. G. R. Thomson

One of the problems associated with building any aberration-corrected electron microscope objective lens lies in the difficulty of obtaining a sufficiently short focal length. A number of systems have focal lengths in the 1cm. range, and these are more suitable for microprobe work. If the focal length can be made short enough, the chromatic aberration probably does not need to be corrected, and the design is much simplified. A corrector device which can be used with a conventional magnetic objective lens of short focal length (Fig. 1) must either have dimensions comparable to the bore and gap of that lens, or have very large magnetic or electric field gradients. A successful approach theoretically has been to use quadrupoleoctopole corrector units, although these suffer from very large fifth order aberrations and a limited field of view.


Author(s):  
Tsutomu Komoda

Electron microscope images of crystal lattices have been observed by many authors since the first achievement by Menter in 1956. During these years, the optimum operating conditions with electron microscopes have been investigated for the high resolution lattice imaging. Finally minute lattice spacings around 1 Å have been resolved by several authors by using contemporary instruments. The major lattice planes with low index in crystals are almost within a range of spacing capable to be resolved by electron microscopy (1-3 Å). Therefore, the observing techniques are now essential for practical studies in the area of crystallography as well as metal physics.Although the point to point resolution of the electron microscope is restricted due to the spherical aberration of the objective lens in addition to the diffraction, the lattice resolution is mainly limited due to the chromatic aberration under the normal illumination.


Author(s):  
H. Rose

To significantly improve the performance of electron microscopes it is necessary to enlarge the usable aperture. At low voltages this requirement can only be met if the chromatic and the spherical aberration are corrected simultaneously. For imaging surfaces with reflected electrons (LEEM) a magnetic deflection system separating the illuminating beam from the image-forming beam must be incorporated in the region above the objective lens. Since the use of an electrostatic mirror for the correction of the chromatic aberration also necessitates such a system, it would be extremely helpful if the beam splitter can be designed in such a way that it also separates the parts of the image-forming beam heading toward and away from the mirror.


Author(s):  
B. Bormans ◽  
P. Hagemann

Point resolution of better than 0.2 nm is today achievable in medium voltage electron microscopes. Crucial for this achievement is the objective lens design which has to provide sufficiently low spherical and chromatic aberration figures. In addition to the lens itself, its integration into the overall microscope optics has to ensure a reproducible and accurate alignment.Cleaver has shown that symmetrical lenses have lower aberrations than their asymmetrical counterparts by a factor of 1.5 or 2. Theoretical optimization of this lens at 300 kV can be carried out using a first-order finite element program, as developed by Munro. The symmetrical single-field condenser objective with saturated pole-piece tips produces particularly good values with Cs = 1.0 mm and Cc = 1.4 mm at 300 kV. In this lens the specimen is placed in the centre of the magnetic field.


Author(s):  
Takashi Nagatani ◽  
Mitsugu Sato ◽  
Masako OSUMI

An “in-lens” type FESEM, Hitachi S-900, developed as an ultra high resolution SEM having 0.7nm resolution at 30kV(Nagatani et al 1986), was modified for better performance at low beam energy(about 5kV or below) with small aberrations of ths objective lens and dual specimen position design. This is in responce to the recent upsurge of interest in using the LVSEM, which enables us hopefully to observe the surface topography of uncoated samples directly with maximum fidelity(Pawley 1987).The actual visibility of the minute topographical details depends upon not anly the spot size of the scanning beam but also physics of interaction between impinging electrons and solid sample(Joy 1989). However, the resolution can never be better than the spot size. Then, it would seem logical to specify the spot size first when designing a high resolution SEM. As discussed earlier(Crewe 1985; Nagatani et al 1987), the spot size of the beam is mainly limited by spherical aberration of the objective lens and diffraction at high voltage(about 10 kV and above). On the other hand, chromatic aberration and diffraction are the dominant factors at low voltages(about 5kV or below). Source size of a cold field emission is so small that we could neglect it for simplicity.In general, chromatic aberration can be smaller at higher excitation of a narrow gap objective pole-piece, which also made the working distance short. Therefore, some compromise is necessary among minimized aberrations, required specimen size, stage traverse and tilting angle etc. In practice, tolerable distortion of the image at low magnification and collection efficiency of the secondary electrons are another factors to be considered in designing the instrument. By taking these factors in simulation, an optimized objective lens was designed as shown in Table 1.


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