Vlasov Evgenii, Denisov Nikita, Verbeeck Johan
Electron Microscopy for Materials Science, University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
HardwareX. 2023 Mar 10;14:e00413. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2023.e00413. eCollection 2023 Jun.
Electron microscopy is an indispensable tool for the characterization of (nano) materials. Electron microscopes are typically very expensive and their internal operation is often shielded from the user. This situation can provide fast and high quality results for researchers focusing on e.g. materials science if they have access to the relevant instruments. For researchers focusing on technique development, wishing to test novel setups, however, the high entry price can lead to risk aversion and deter researchers from innovating electron microscopy technology further. The closed attitude of commercial entities about how exactly the different parts of electron microscopes work, makes it even harder for newcomers in this field. Here we propose an affordable, easy-to-build electron detector for use in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The aim of this project is to shed light on the functioning of such detectors as well as show that even a very modest design can lead to acceptable performance while providing high flexibility for experimentation and customization.
电子显微镜是表征（纳米）材料不可或缺的工具。电子显微镜通常非常昂贵，其内部操作往往对用户保密。如果专注于材料科学等领域的研究人员能够使用相关仪器，这种情况可以为他们提供快速且高质量的结果。然而，对于专注于技术开发、希望测试新型装置的研究人员来说，高昂的入门价格可能导致规避风险，并阻碍研究人员进一步创新电子显微镜技术。商业实体对电子显微镜不同部件具体工作方式的保密态度，让该领域的新手更难开展研究。在此，我们提出一种价格实惠、易于制造的电子探测器，用于扫描电子显微镜（SEM）。该项目的目的是阐明此类探测器的工作原理，并表明即使是非常普通的设计也能带来可接受的性能，同时为实验和定制提供高度的灵活性。
