On some contrast reversals in SEM: Application to metal/insulator systems

Imaging photoinduced surface potentials on hybrid perovskites by real-time Scanning Electron Microscopy

“…Localized potential distributions at surfaces and corresponding patch fields affect the trajectories of emitted SEs, in dependence on their kinetic energy and emission point. All these effects must be taken into consideration for a correct interpretation of the experimental results when using SEM to map local charge distributions (Cazaux, 2008(Cazaux, , 2004.…”

Experimental characterisation of charge distribution and transport in electron irradiated PMMA

“…Space charge accumulation and discharge is of great interest both scientifically and technologically [1][2][3][4][5]. There is now a considerable amount of literature concerned with experimental characterization of space charge [6][7][8][9] and with phenomenological models of space charge formation and discharge [10].…”

Material contrast in SEM: Fermi energy and work function effects

“…For this more modest objective, a possible strategy would be use to publish secondary electron yield data, d(E1), of each component in order to assign brighter regions to the most emitting compound and the darkest regions to the least emitting compound. Recently this strategy has been successfully applied to a quartz/Cr system in order to explain the observed inversion contrast when the incident beam energy is changed, but many questions remain open with respect to the generalization of these very specific results [1]. The first question concerns the nature of the signal being detected: Is the image only formed with true secondary electrons (SE)?…”