Electron-beam-interrogation

Le Mont Scientific B-10 system features an energy-dispersive x-ray detector. Particles are loaded and interrogated to find size and shape various software options are available. The Bausch and Lomb system has also been applied to electron beam microscopy [l87,l88].rracor Northern describe an integrated system for the collection and processing of analytical and image data from SEM and STEM [l89,l90].Various sample preparation methods have been described. 

A number of techniques are available to interrogate material surfaces. The development of instrumentation suitable for this type of examination has occured relatively recently, in the last quarter of a century or so. Some of these methods, however, are simply not suitable for polymer analysis, (for example. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), where the electron beam used as an excitation source is too energetic to avoid damage to organic materials) and all of them have limitations in terms of the information they can provide. By combining techniques which give complementary information one can obtain a detailed description of a polymeric interface. 

Nearly all these techniques involve interrogation of the surface with a particle probe. The function of the probe is to excite surface atoms into states giving rise to emission of one or more of a variety of secondary particles such as electrons, photons, positive and secondary ions, and neutrals. Because the primary particles used in the probing beam can also be electrons or photons, or ions or neutrals, many separate techniques are possible, each based on a different primary-secondary particle combination. Most of these possibilities have now been established, but in fact not all the resulting techniques are of general application, some because of the restricted or specialized nature of the information obtained and others because of difficult experimental requirements. In this publication, therefore, most space is devoted to those surface analytical techniques that are widely applied and readily available commercially, whereas much briefer descriptions are given of the many others the use of which is less common but which - in appropriate circumstances, particularly in basic research - can provide vital information. 

Nearly all these techniques involve interrogation of the surface with a particle probe. The function of the probe is to excite surface atoms into states giving rise to emission of one or more of a variety of secondary particles such as electrons, photons, positive and secondary ions, and neutrals. Since the primary particles used in the probing beam may afso be either electrons or photons, or ions or neutrals, many separate techniques are... 

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