Analysis of electrically non-conducting sample structures with electron and mass spectroscopic methods

Abstract

Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) is shown to become well applicable to the analysis of dielectric samples when the parameters of the exciting primary electron beam are selected such that the total secondary electron yield from the analysed surface passes through unity in the decreasing part of the yield curve. For mass spectrometric analysis with its much higher detection power the novel high frequency mode (HFM) of electron-gas SNMS is demonstrated to enable surface and depth profile analysis of partly or completely non-conducting sample structures with the same high quantifiability and depth resolution as for electrically conducting specimens.