Chemical state information of bulk specimens obtained by SEM-based soft-X-ray emission spectrometry

Terauchi, Masami*; Koshiya, Shogo*; Sato, Futami*; Takahashi, Hideyuki*; Handa, Nobuo*; Murano, Takanori*; Koike, Masato; Imazono, Takashi; Koeda, Masaru*; Nagano, Tetsuya*; et al.

Microscopy and Microanalysis, 20(3), p.692 - 697, 2014/06

https://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927614000439

Electron beam induced soft-X-ray emission spectroscopy (SXES) by using a grating spectrometer has been introduced to a conventional scanning electron microscope (SEM) for characterizing desired specimen areas of bulk materials. The spectrometer was designed as a grazing-incidence flat-field optics by using aberration corrected (varied-line-spacing) gratings and a multi-channel-plate detector combined with a charge-coupled-device camera, which has already applied for a transmission electron microscope. The best resolution was confirmed as 0.13 eV at Mg L-emission (50 eV), which value is comparable to that of recent dedicated electron energy-loss spectroscopy instruments. This SXES-SEM instrument presents density of states of simple metals of bulk Mg and Li. Apparent band structure effects have been observed in Si L-emission of Si-wafer, P L-emission of GaP-wafer, and Al L-emissions of intermetallic compounds of AlCo, AlPd, AlPt, and AlAu.