Basics and Current Aspects of Scanning Electron Microscopy
Basics and Current Aspects of Scanning Electron Microscopy
Sunday, November 16, 2025: 10:20 AM
3 (Pasadena Convention Center)
Summary:
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) remains to be one of the most powerful and flexible techniques to characterize structure and composition of micro- and nano-electronic devices and, particularly in combination with Focused Ion Beam (FIB), to analyze processing defects and device failures. However, optimum utilization of the capabilities of state-of-the-art field SEMs and meaningful application of the immense number of different imaging and analysis techniques available these days require a thorough understanding of various key concepts. In this tutorial, not only the essentials of SEM, such as beam and image formation, beam-specimen interaction, detection concepts, contrast mechanisms and sample preparation will be reviewed, but also recent advances in instrumentation, imaging and data processing be discussed along with application examples. Such recent hot topics include, to name a few, scanning transmission microscopy (STEM) in SEM, 3D analytics, automation, machine learning based data postprocessing, and combination with other microscopy techniques such as X-ray microscopy (XRM) or atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) remains to be one of the most powerful and flexible techniques to characterize structure and composition of micro- and nano-electronic devices and, particularly in combination with Focused Ion Beam (FIB), to analyze processing defects and device failures. However, optimum utilization of the capabilities of state-of-the-art field SEMs and meaningful application of the immense number of different imaging and analysis techniques available these days require a thorough understanding of various key concepts. In this tutorial, not only the essentials of SEM, such as beam and image formation, beam-specimen interaction, detection concepts, contrast mechanisms and sample preparation will be reviewed, but also recent advances in instrumentation, imaging and data processing be discussed along with application examples. Such recent hot topics include, to name a few, scanning transmission microscopy (STEM) in SEM, 3D analytics, automation, machine learning based data postprocessing, and combination with other microscopy techniques such as X-ray microscopy (XRM) or atomic force microscopy (AFM).