A HIGH-RESOLUTION TIME-DISPERSIVE ELECTRON SPECTROMETER FOR FAST VOLTAGE-CONTRAST MEASUREMENTS

The feasibility and potential advantages in terms of precision and spe ed of data acquisition of the time-dispersive electron (TiDE) spectrom eter have been previously established both theoretically and by prelim inary practical results. The present work aims to provide a suitable h ardware setup to allow a demonstration that the technique can produce reliable measurements from realistic specimens, which will conform to the theoretical predictions in terms of spatial resolution, collection efficiency and electron energy distribution. To this end, a complete integrated final lens and detector arrangement has been designed, with the aid of computer simulations, and a practical implementation built and fitted into an existing SEM in order that a fair evaluation of it s properties may be made in comparison with existing commonly-used tec hniques. The system can be operated in both time-dispersive and retard ing-field mode so that direct comparisons of performance can be made w ith identical specimen and primary beam conditions.