Scanning Low-Energy Electron Diffraction Microscopy Combined with Scanning Tunnling Microscopy

Abstract

A ultra-high vacuum scanning electron microscope (UHV-SEM) with a field emission gun (FEG) has been operated in an energy range of from 100 eV to 3 keV. A new technique of scanning low energy electron diffraction (LEED) microscopy has been added to the other techniques: scanning Auger microscopy (SAM), secondary electron microscopy, electron energy loss microscopy and the others available for the UHV-SEM. In addition to scanning LEED microscopy, a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) has been installed in the UHV-SEM-.The combination of STM with SEM covers a wide magnification range from 105 to 107 and is very effective for observation of surface structures with a high resolution of about 1 Å.A UHV-FEG-SEM is equipped in a chamber in which the vacuum is better than 2×10-10 Torr. A movable cylindrical mirror analyzer (CMA), a two dimensional detector of diffracted LEED beams, an ion gun and a deposition source are installed in this chamber. The concept of the scanning LEED microscope is comprised of two steps: (1) the formation of a selected area LEED pattern and (2) the generation of raster images with information contained in the diffraction pattern. In the present experiment, the LEED detector assembly shown in Fig.l has been used; it consists of two hemisherical grids, a two-stage channel-plate amplifier and a position-sensitive detector. The selection of one (or more) diffracted beam is performed electronically by a window using the two-dimensional analogue comparators. The intensity of a particular beam selected by the window modulates the brightness of the scanning image and a dark field image sensitive to the surface structure is formed. The experimental spatial resolutions of 150 Å and 500 Å have been attained at the primary electron energy 1 keV and 250 eV, respectively.