AUTOMATIC REMOVAL OF SUBSTRATE BACKSCATTERING EFFECTS IN AUGER IMAGING AND SPECTROSCOPY

The York multi-spectral scanning Auger microscope has been used to inv estigate the correlations between Anger and backscattered electron ima ges collected simultaneously from a electron spectrometer and the quad rants of a Si p-n junction backscattered electron detector. Digital si gnal processing of the four backscattered electron signals allows the calculation of the Anger backscattering factor at each pixel position, tire division of which into the Auger image allows the removal of con trast due to subsurface composition variations. The method, which allo ws the quantification of complicated heterogeneous samples, requires n o fitting parameters or prior knowledge regarding the sample.