Spring 2011 MAT 571 Introduction to Electron Microscopy Homework 1

Owner: Fazl Fatih Melemez

Please provide clear and organized answers to the questions below. Avoid copy-pastes and taking sentences directly from reference sources Compile the texts with your own words and understanding. You are expected to provide in-depth answers with figures and schematics. 1. What is depth of field? How does it differ in an optical microscope and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) ? My definition is below in light of deep search from many sources; Depth of Field is the length of an interval that allows an object to move along the optical axis provided that it stays in focus condition without loosing anything from sharpness and clarity. To understand how it differs in different microscopes, we shall look for what are the variables of DOF. Then we can seperately examine the microscopes. Depth of Field (DOF), depends on resolution and tan based on the equation of tan = /d . Here, resolution limit defined by the Abbe equation that is; = 0,61. / NA [1], [2]. We can clearly say, DOF is strongly dependent to . Tangent and sinus values are increasing by increases.To have satisfactory DOF, it is necessary to catch light which smaller values. From the view of angle, in optical microscope, image of an object is occurred on back focal plane of the objective as seen in Fig.1.1 below. Thence, angle of the reflected light is limited by NA width.

Fig.1.1. A thin-lens ray diagram, in which bending of light rays is imagined to occur at the mid-plane of the lens (dashed vertical line). These special rays define the focal length f of the lens and the location of the back-focal plane (dotted vertical line)[3].

In SEM, convergence angle of beam might be very small. This lets to SEM sense more depth of field on the specimen.

Fig.1.2. (a) The formation of a focused probe of diameter d by the SEM objective lens. (b) Increase r in electron-probe radius for a plane located a distance v above or below the plane of focus [4].

Also, wavelength could be a parameter through effecting the resolution. Wavelength of visible light in range of approximately 380-700 nm, it limits the Optical Microscobe. In SEM, since electrons behave also like a wave, their wavelength would be in consideration. Wavelength of the electrons in 20 kV about 0.0086 nm which is calculated by the de Broglie relationship [5]. As a comparative example, in case of aperture diameter is taken as 100 m, magnification of 1000x and a working distance of 20 mm in SEM gives 40 m depth of field. In optical microscobe, working at 1000x magnification, with an objective lens of numerical aperture of 0.7 would have depth of field of only ~1 m [6]. To sum up as final conclusion, depth of field value is higher in SEM than what it is in Optical Microscobe. 2. Compare and contrast on the similarities between the lenses used in a conventional optical microscope and a SEM. Optical microscope basically contains eyepiece and objective lens. In SEM, there is no eyepiece lens, instead digital imaging technique is used to monitorize. Objective lens are used in both. And the lens which is differentiate the principle is condenser (magnetic) lens. In SEM, electron beam is controlled by magnetic field of magnetic (condenser) lenses. Electromagnetic lenses do focus the electrons with attraction of magnetic field. Under the magnetic field electrons moves like in whirlpool and are focused by the non-uniform magnetic field. Having a non-uniform magnetic field in condenser lenses concludes that they act like a convex lens.

In the magnetic lenses overall speed of electrons do not change. But in objective lenses, speed of light does change depending on the refractive index. Focusing power of magnetic lens is given by ;

In light microscope, there is only one way to change focusing power and that can be done by mechanically; by changing cstructure of the lens surfaces /or/ changing the spacing between elements of a compound lenses in the zoom lens of a digital camera [7]. To give a similar property, in both lens type, magnetic or objective lens, strength of the lens increases as thickness increases. Magnetic lenses have somewhat lower aberrations. Spherical aberration can be eliminated both lens type. But chromatic aberration can be significantly eliminated in magnetic lenses but not totally and not in optical microscope. 3. How many types of lens aberrations exist? How do they effect the images? There are three major type aberration on lenses as on axis, off axis and distortion. And these types are broken up into different subtitles. Spherical aberration, chromatic aberration and lens astigmatism are well-known and most frequent types. Also coma and other distortion types can be counted as seen in Fig. 3.1. We'll go into a little in-detail for well-known types.

Fig. 3.1. Aberrations of a simple lens [8].

The constitution mechanism of spherical aberration is like following. Focal points of closer portions of beam to the optical axis drops off to farther points, while the farther portions of beam from the optical axis are creating a

focal point those are closer to lens origin. This phenomena is referred to as spherical aberration(shown in Fig. 3.1. b). Effects of spherical aberration on the image is to soften the contrast and to blur the details [9]. Spherical aberration has uniform field, so it covers all resolution area. Spherical aberration can not be eliminated in lens design but can be minimized by using strong lenses which have small focal length value and strong focusing power. Chromatic aberration is generally based on diversity of electron/or/visible light energy amount. Since higher energy electrons are less deflected than lower ones, they're brought to a focal point further from the position of the lens. And just as in Spherical Aberration, giving rise to a disc of least confusion. There is more than source of chromatic aberration, of course variation of beam energy (which means wavelength) is most important one. In SEM condenser lenses, variations of electromagnetic lens currents, contribute to this kind of aberration. In case of providing voltage stability and current stability in condenser lens system, if they would be adequate,chromatic aberration should not be an obstacle for resolution and microscopy. Although, it may still be a problem associated with inelastic scattering [10]. How does chromatic aberration effect that causes to blurry images. It can be understood more clear when an infinitesimal light fragment is considered as having a focal range instead of a focal point. So, image will be wavy between a number of focal points. Axial Astigmatism is another lens defect which results from inhomogenousity or manufacturing defects of the lens. These defects or imperfections of the lens causes misalignment of electron focusing through non-uniform magnetic field so that electrons or rays deviate from axial symmetry. Which means lens has different focal points between the electrons that travel along the horizontal plane and electrons travel along the vertical plane. To prevent this,(basically for all monochromatic aberrations) people can reduce the numerical aperture, by using just a portion of NA, it is also limiting the resolution. [11] 4. Compare and discuss the resolution limit in SEM and an optical microscope. To make a comparison between the microscopes, some concepts need to be defined initially. We'll look into the parameters those effect some features of microscopes such as resolving power, resolution, etc... Resolving power can be defined as distinguishing ability of the microscope for two small discrete objects as separate entities. Resolution concept leans upon the Airy Disc concept which is explaining why we come across to a limit while looking at smaller things and how the mechanism works. To explain resolution and its limit, Lord Rayleigh proposed a criteria. This criteria is established on the Airy Disc concept. When the light is subjected to diffraction, image of light is constituted like circular pattern.Central spot of this pattern has maximum intensity. This circular consecutive patterns are named as

Airy Disc. Incredibly small fragments of the light also creates these Airy Discs, even they're at infinitesimal scale.

Fig. 4.1. Variation of light intensity across a set of Airy rings. Most of the intensity lies within the first ring that is within a spot of diameter d1 (%84) [12].

According to Rayleigh criteria, when the maximum intensity of Airy disc coincides with the first minimum of second these two points can just be distinguished. Representative can be seen in Fig. 4.2.

Fig. 4.1. Intensity of the Airy rings from two neighbouring pinholes. Intensity distributions from each of the pinholes separately are shown as solid lines. At the Rayleigh resolution limit as shown here maximum intensity from one pinhole coincides with the first minimum from the other. This gives a resolution limit of d1/2 [12]. Formulation for resolution limit according to Rayleigh Criterion is formulated by following;

In this formulation, we can clearly see that wavelength is directly proportional with resolution while refractive index and half-angle has inverse proportion. For an optical microscope, resolution limit is calculated with extreme values for each variable. Oil immersion objective lense to increase refractive index, maximum sinus value is 1 and green light with lowest wavelength value are used in calculation and Eq. gives the result as 150 nm (200 or 260 nm in some sources, difference is based on diversity of oil immersion refractive index values and wavelength of the used light). [12]

Fig. 4.3. Rayleigh criterion for spatial resolution. (a) Profile of a single diffraction pattern: The bright Airy disk and 1st- and 2nd-order diffraction rings are visible. (b) Profile of two disks separated at the Rayleigh limit such that the maximum of a disk overlaps the first minimum of the other disk: The points are now just barely resolved. (c) Profile of two disks at a separation distance such that the maximum of each disk overlaps the second minimum of the other disk: The points are clearly resolved[13].

This means in an optical microscope, if we're trying to see two minute particles whose center to center distance is less than 150 nm (or 200 nm) we can not distinguish these particles and see them as a one point. This limit is in range of 1 to 20 nm in SEM, of course it changes upon the instrument. In 2009, 0.4 nm at 30 kV is achieved with Hitachi S-5500. About the SEM resolution limit, another source gives information that intermediate range is 1 to 10 nm [14].

5. Discuss the impact of sample types on the resolution limit in a SEM. Provide examples.

Working with metals is always great and gives maximum features that we can get from a specimen. Because due to metals have free electrons, it is easier than any other type of material to rupture electrons. In general, non conductive materials like ceramics, organics and polymers need to be coated with a conductive surface to be examined under the SEM. Because grounding is strongly needed for such a high voltage application, otherwise specimen may be burned or deformed easily. To make them conductive, sputter coater is used to coat specimens with gold with thickness of 10 nm. Working with these specimens at high resolution mode might create a kind of problem. It is necessary that care must be taken to prevent that gold coating does not mask the fine surface details. Also coating may interfere with other signals or contrast modes. This is a parameter that stands out as an obstacle to work with non conductive materials with a closer range of resolution limits[15]. Above, it was covered from the materials type of view. Now, considering resolution limit from the atomic number of a material. Heavy materials gives us greater resolution and image quality. It is easier to propagate and rupture more electrons from higher atomic number materials. This is also the reason of why are specimens coated with Gold instead of copper which is highly conductive material, too. Density and atomic number of gold allows greater resolution. Why because interaction volume is less in high atomic number specimens. It is reducing the possibility of their overlapping in specimen.Which is what we want.

References [1]http://www.scribd.com/doc/36709098/Introduction-to-Microscopy

[2]Goodhew P. , Humpreys J. , Beanland R. , Electron Microscopy and Analysis, 3rd Edition, Page:12 [3] Egerton R. F., Physical Prensiples of Electron Microscopy , Page:32 [4] Egerton R. F., Physical Prensiples of Electron Microscopy , Page:146
[5]Goodhew P., Humpreys J., Beanland R, Electron Microscopy and Analysis , 3rd Edition, Page:23 [6]Goodhew P., Humpreys J., Beanland R, Electron Microscopy and Analysis , 3rd Edition, Page:135 [7]Egerton R. F., Physical Principles of Electron Microscopy , Page: 41-42.

[8]Murphy D.B., Fundementals of Light Microscopy and Electronic Imaging, Page:51 [9]Warren J. Smith, Modern Optical Engineering, 3rd Edition,McGraw-Hill. [10]Brandon D., Kaplan W., Microstructural Characterization Page:184 of Materials ,

[11]Goodhew P. , Humpreys J. , Beanland R. , Electron Microscopy and Analysis, 3rd Edition, Page:15, [12]Goodhew P. , Humpreys J. , Beanland R. , Electron Microscopy and Analysis, 3rd Edition, Page:8,
[13]Murphy D.B., Fundementals of Electron Microscopy and Electronic Imaging , page:88

[14] Egerton R. F., Physical Principles of Electron Microscopy , Page:18 [15]Goodhew P. , Humpreys J. , Beanland R. , Electron Microscopy and Analysis, 3rd Edition, Page:164,