ZEISS
3 Product and Functional Description | 3.2 Main Components
Fig. 20: Comparison of surface information with contamination. InLens
detector (left): Imaging of thin layers on
detector (right): Layers are not detected. Acceleration voltages: 10 kV.
Influence
Acceleration
Voltage
The InLens SE detector is frequently used at lower acceleration voltages.
At low acceleration voltages, the primary electrons carry less energy and have a smaller interac-
tion volume and a lower depth of penetration. The secondary electrons are generated in the up-
per layers of the specimen and enable good imaging of surface structures and contaminations.
At higher acceleration voltages, the penetration depth of the primary electrons increases. More in-
formation stems from the bulk of the material.
These effects of acceleration voltage are visualized in the following images:
Fig. 21: Comparison of surface information at different acceleration voltages. 0.2 kV acceleration voltage (top left):
Homogenous illumination, mapping of actual surface. 1 kV acceleration voltage (top right): Increasing edge effect. 5
kV acceleration voltage (bottom left): Increasing edge effect, reversed contrast of some structures. 10 kV acceleration
voltage (bottom right): Transparent surface due to increased penetration depth
Instruction Manual ZEISS SIGMA series | en-US | Rev. 7 | 352102-9344-006
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