Two-stage gas amplifier for ultrahigh resolution low vacuum scanning electron microscopy

We describe a magnetic field assisted, two-stage secondary electron gas amplification process for low vacuum scanning electron microscopy. The field of an ultrahigh resolution magnetic immersion objective lens and the electric field of an annular electrode configuration partition the amplification volume into two regions in which the electric and magnetic fields are parallel and crossed, respectively. The fields confine secondary electrons to axial and radial oscillations within the detector volume, until all of the kinetic energy imparted by an anode is dissipated through inelastic collisions with gas molecules. The electron confinement yields high gas amplification efficiency at short working distances and low gas pressures, facilitating high resolution imaging at low electron beam energies. Charging of insulating specimens is stabilized by positive ions produced in the gas ionization cascade. Furthermore, the signal to background level and bandwidth of this detector are superior to those of earlier generations of environmental secondary electron detectors. The combination of low vacuum, short working distance, and low beam energy is attractive to the semiconductor metrology industry, in particular, for critical dimension measurements on photolithographic masks.