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State-of-the-Art FESEM for the ACT Node

 

November 2014

 

The new ANFF ACT Node's FEI Verios field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) instrument was installed at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (near the current ANU Centre fro Advanced Microscopy) and commissioned in November 2014. Our new Microanalysis Research Officer, employed specifically for this new tool, will commence in early 2015.

 

The FEI Verios has a field emission gun and a mono-chromator suitable for ultra-high resolution imaging. In addition to the Everhart-Thornley and in-lens detector, the new FESEM boasts several new electron detectors, such as retractable directional backscattering detector(R-DBS), a mirror detector and an in-column detector suitable for imaging at low energy. This instrument is equipped with an Oxford electron dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectrometer with an 80mm2 silicon drift detector currently installed.

 

In early 2015, a Gatan MonoCL4 Elite cathodoluminescence (CL) system will be installed on this instrument enabling CL mapping and spectroscopic studies at room temperature and low temperatures.

 

SEM picture from the new machine

Figure showing FESEM image collected by DBS detector showing chemical information
of a sample with AlAs/GaAs Bragg mirrors and a 7nm InGaAs quantum well
(white line) close to the surface of the sample.

 

 

Story & images courtesy of Dr Jenny Wong-Leung, Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, ANU