A COMPACT, FAST, PARALLEL, MAGNETICALLY BASED ELECTRON ENERGY ANALYSER FOR SURFACE STUDIES

The manufacture of electron devices is complicated and, as in any industrial process, quality control is an important issue. One of the many causes foi defective integrated circuits is the presence of unwanted small particles. In order to assist with quality control the composition of the particles is determined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and analysing the X-rays coming from the sample. However, this method cannot be used on the very small particles since the X-rays come from a much larger volume than the size of the particles. As the size of the features on electron devices reduce, so the size of particles that can destroy the operation of that chip also reduce. Auger electrons (instead of X-rays) can be used to determine th composition of much smaller particles. However, this method is traditionally slow and is difficult to work with the magnetic fields within the SEM. This research is intended to develop a new and much faster electron energy analyser (EEA) which will also operate in the presence of moderate magnetic fields. A fast and compact EEA will also allow the composition determination of other small structures including biological materials and polymers as well as in performing dynamic experiments.