Characterization of materials using the secondary electron energy spectromicroscopy technique

Abstract

This paper presents experimental results to show how secondary electron (SE) energy spectroscopy inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM) might become a useful tool for characterising optical materials. It demonstrates how SE energy spectroscopy can quantify and analyse the build-up of hydrocarbon contamination layers on metal surfaces, potentially useful for monitoring the degradation of metallic mirror coatings. Experimental results are presented to illustrate how the SE energy spectral method can be used to measure dopant concentration in bulk semiconductor samples and the in-built voltage of pn junction heterojunctions. This capability, together with the SEM's ability to provide high spatial resolution, points towards SE energy spectroscopy becoming a powerful analytical technique for quantitatively mapping optoelectronic semiconductors parameters on the nanoscale.

Keywords

• Scanning electron microscope
• Secondary electrons
• Electron energy spectroscopy
• Materials characterization
• Semiconductor dopant concentration
• pn heterojunctions