There are many advantages of IVEMs over more conventional microscopes, all of which make it possible to obtain more accurate data at higher resolution. One significant drawback of higher accelerating voltages is degraded performance of the electron detector, a problem that is particularly serious with CCD cameras. At any voltage, one faces a tradeoff with the CCD performance between sensitivity and resolution. Electron scattering within the scintillator and its support broaden the point spread function, while the decreased scattering cross section at higher voltages decreases the light output from the scintillator. At voltages much above 100 kV these effects have been found to seriously limit CCD performance. With the trend towards electronic data collection and microscope automation, it is essential that a high performance detector be developed for the IVEM. One approach to optimizing the performance tradeoff employs lens coupling to improve resolution, at the expense of sensitivity.
An Outlook into a Possible Intensified Camera Based Thomson Scattering System for High Temperature Plasmas
