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Application Notes
The purpose of this note is to study the charging phenomenon in low voltage imaging and demonstrate some practical approaches on a Keysight Technologies, Inc. 8500 compact LV-FESEM for charging control in imaging uncoated polystyrene spheres. Because of its high resolution, broad range of magnifications and straightforward image interpretation, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is one of the common imaging techniques for morphological characterization of polymeric materials with various shapes, crystalline forms, and dimensions. Unfortunately, there are some technical difficulties that make SEM study of polymers quite challenging. The most notorious impediment of polymer imaging by SEM is charging because most polymers are highly insulating (volume resistivity ≅1015–1020Ω•cm). When the primary electron beam impinges on a polymer specimen, the localized excess electrons cannot be conducted away giving rise to a negative charge accumulation which may cause annoying artifacts such as abnormal contrast, image distortion and shift. Coating the insulating polymer specimen with a metallic thin film is normally implemented to overcome the charging problems. However, the intrinsic nanostructure of the coating might be discernable at high magnifications unless special metals (e.g. Cr, Ir) are selected with meticulous deposition procedures.
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