2024/07/01 by Surya Kamal, Kamal, Surya, Richard K. Hailstone +1
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advancements in Photolithography Techniques #Electron and X-Ray Spectroscopy Techniques #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Optics (physics.optics) #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.01439
openalex publication_date 2024/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Point-spread function of the probe forming optics (PSFoptics ) is reported for the first time in an uncorrected (without multipole correctors) scanning electron microscope (SEM). In an SEM, the electron probe information is lost as the beam interacts with the specimen. We show how the probe phase information can be recovered from reconstructed probe intensity estimates. Controlled defocus was used to capture a focal-series of SEM images of 28.5 nm gold (Au ) nanoparticles (NPs ) on a carbon (\mathrm C ) film. These images were used to reconstruct their respective probe intensities to create a focal-series of probe intensities, which were the input to the phase retrieval pipeline. Using the complete description (intensity and phase) of the electron probe wavefunction at the specimen plane, we report the PSFoptics for multiple data sets for beam energy E =20 keV . This work opens up new possibilities for an alternative way of aberration correction and aberration-free imaging in scanning electron microscopy.