Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Microanalysis

Abstract

This is not your father’s, your mother’s, or your grandparent’s Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Microanalysis (SEMXM). But that is not to say that there is no continuity or to deny a family resemblance. SEMXM4 is the fourth in the series of textbooks with this title, and continues a tradition that extends back to the “zero-th edition” in 1975 published under the title, “Practical Scanning Electron Microscopy” (Plenum Press, New York). However, the latest edition differs sharply from its predecessors, which attempted an encyclopedic approach to the subject by providing extensive details on how the SEM and its associated devices actually work, for example, electron sources, lenses, electron detectors, X-ray spectrometers, and so on. In constructing this new edition, the authors have chosen a different approach. Modern SEMs and the associated X-ray spectrometry and crystallography measurement functions operate under such extensive computer control and automation that it is actually difficult for the microscopist-microanalyst to interact with the instrument except within carefully prescribed boundaries. Much of the flexibility of parameter selection that early instruments provided has now been lost, as instrumental operation functions have been folded into software control. Thus, electron sources are merely turned “on,” with the computer control optimizing the operation, or for the thermally assisted field emission gun, the electron source may be permanently “on.” The user can certainly adjust the lenses to focus the image, but this focusing action often involves complex interactions of two or more lenses, which formerly would have required individual adjustment. Moreover, the nature of the SEM field has fundamentally changed. What was once a very specialized instrument system that required a high level of training and knowledge on the part of the user has become much more of a routine tool. The SEM is now simply one of a considerable suite of instruments that can be employed to solve problems in the physical and biological sciences, in engineering, in technology, in manufacturing and quality control, in failure analysis, in forensic science, and other fields.