Design and fabrication of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with an electrostatic column for process embedment

Abstract

In a scanning electron microscope (SEM), the electron beam emitted from an electron gun is focused by a lens and then scanned onto the substrate. The SEM images are obtained by detecting the secondary electrons produced by the interactions between the primary electrons and the substrate material. Currently, various kinds of products for microscopy, such as field emission (FE) SEM which uses the field emission and the helium ion microscope (HIM) which utilizes helium ions as imaging particles, are widely designed for the purpose of improving the resolution of images. However, these conventional devices are not suitable for processing because they require a high vacuum environment or because they allow easy contaminated by the plasma-forming elements. In this research a study on a mini-SEM with an electrostatic focusing lens that is applicable for material treatment in semiconductor manufacturing processes and for inspection devices was conducted. Modification of the column design in order to overcome the shortcomings of electromagnet and the bulky size by adopting an electrostatic lens will be presented.