Conclusion and Perspectives

Abstract

Through the course of this book, the routine capabilities of state-of-the-art FE-SEMs to provide nanometer resolution was the central theme. Especially, the focus was directed towards the cold-field emission technology that faced a revolution with the introduction of the auto-flash technology. This technology removes the drawbacks of the previous CFE technology and allows a higher brightness and large current density at all time, a small energy spread , and a low beam instabilities due to an improved gun chamber vacuum and stable beam current . All these parameters have an impact on the image quality. The high current density and brightness allow reducing significantly the beam current necessary to obtained SE, BSE, STEM, and x-ray images while keeping the probe current and beam size reasonably low, which helps reducing the specimen charging at the same time.