Numerical simulation of multi-combined effects of parameters on polymer charging characteristics due to electron irradiation

Abstract

Charging characteristics of an insulator specimen due to non-penetrated electron irradiation have been attracting a great deal of attention in the fields such as scanning electron microscopy, electron probe analysis, and space irradiation. In this paper, we use a numerical simulation model based on Monte Carlo method for investigating the electron scattering. The elastic scattering is calculated with the Mott cross-section, and the inelastic scattering is simulated with Penn model and the fast secondary electron model according to the primary energy. The charge transport caused by the build-in electric field and charge density gradient is calculated with finite-difference time-domain method. Multi-combined effect of correlative parameters on charging characteristics is investigated by efficient multithreading parallel computing. During the irradiation, the landing energy of primary electrons decreases due to the negative surface potential, which makes the secondary electron yield increase. Variations of secondary electron current and sample current are presented to verify the validity of the simulation model by comparing with existing experimental results. Evolutions of leakage current, surface potential and internal space charge quantity are calculated under different conditions of incident electron current, primary energy and sample thickness. The results are presented in contour maps with different multi-parameter combinations, primary energy and sample mobility, primary energy and sample thickness, and primary energy and incident current. The balance state of charging will be determined by leakage current under conditions of a larger primary energy, sample mobility, incident current, or a less sample thickness, which is shown as the leakage current dominated mode. While in the cases of a lower primary energy, sample mobility, incident current, or a larger sample thickness, the balance state of charging is mainly dominated by secondary electron current, as the secondary electron current dominated mode. In other cases except the above two, the balance state will be determined by both leakage and secondary currents as the mixture mode. In the same mode, variations of charging characteristics with parameters are monotonic. When the change of a parameter makes the negative surface potential increase, the effect of this parameter on negative surface potential will be weakened, while the effects of other parameters on the negative potential will be enhanced. With the change of current dominated mode, the total charge quantity exhibits the local maximum with respect to the sample thickness, and the value of this maximum increases with primary energy. Moreover, the leakage current increases with incident current linearly. The presented results can be helpful for understanding regularities and mechanisms of charging due to electron irradiation, and estimating the charging intensity under different conditions of irradiation and sample material.