Electron Beam Damage at Solid Surfaces

Characterization of boroaluminosilicate glass surface structures by B K-edge NEXAFS

“…The first-order exponential decay curves fit to these data are consistent with models for the structural damage induced by electron-stimulated desorption during Auger electron analysis [39]. Yoshida et al [40] showed that similar damage occurs for soft-x-rays and that damage is not directly related to incident photon energy, but rather it is caused by the large number of secondary electrons which are generated following the absorption.…”

The use of Auger spectroscopy for the in situ elemental characterization of sub‐micrometer presolar grains

“…Unfortunately, however, this type of sample damage affects the highly surface-sensitive Auger measurements more than other techniques. Electron beam effects are material-specific and while some samples can be analyzed with high intensity beams for extended periods of time in point analysis mode without any ill effects, other samples show alterations so rapidly that completely non-destructive measurements are nearly impossible (Pantano et al 1998). The silicate grains that we are interested in studying fall into an intermediate range, where most damage can be reduced by a careful choice of analytical parameters.…”

“…The silicate grains that we are interested in studying fall into an intermediate range, where most damage can be reduced by a careful choice of analytical parameters. There is a wide array of possible types of electron beam damage, including structural changes and partial sample melting (Pantano et al 1998), but not all damage types are equally important for our applications, particularly because some of the crystal structure has already been altered by the preceding ion beam bombardment of the mineral grains. We are mostly interested in those electron beam effects that can lead to changes in the sample's composition, which we want to determine with the Auger spectrometer.…”

“…Any sample documentation by high magnification SEM imaging should ideally be scheduled for after the Auger measurements. In some cases it may also be possible to shorten the Auger measurement itself (and thus the electron beam exposure) by foregoing the acquisition of a complete electron energy spectrum in favor of smaller energy windows of only the peaks of interest (Pantano et al 1998), although this necessarily requires some prior knowledge of the sample's expected composition.…”