The imaging requirements for 1000 line CCD camera systems include resolution, sensitivity, and field of view. In electronic camera systems these characteristics are determined primarily by the performance of the electro-optic interface. This component converts the electron image into a light image which is ultimately received by a camera sensor.Light production in the interface occurs when high energy electrons strike a phosphor or scintillator. Resolution is limited by electron scattering and absorption. For a constant resolution, more energy deposition occurs in denser phosphors (Figure 1). In this respect, high density x-ray phosphors such as Gd2O2S are better than ZnS based cathode ray tube phosphors. Scintillating fiber optics can be used instead of a discrete phosphor layer. The resolution of scintillating fiber optics that are used in x-ray imaging exceed 20 1p/mm and can be made very large. An example of a digital TEM image using a scintillating fiber optic plate is shown in Figure 2.
