Development and commercialisation of a novel parallel magnetic analyser for surface studies

This project aims to bring to commercialisation a new electron energy analyser that can acquire full spectra of the surfaces of investigated samples. The unique feature of this invention is that data acquisition will be carried out in parallel and over a wide angular range. This offers an improvement on current technology approaching two orders of magnitude in terms of speed of data acquisition. In addition, the new invention favourably compares with present technology on cost and suitability to sample environment as found in conventional electron mcroscopes. The principal market for the new analyser is in defect review in semiconductor manufacturing but other areas across nanotechnology where elemental analysis of small dimensions is required will also benefit from this development. This is because as semiconductor device sizes become ever smaller, so do the size of undesired particles that can prevent the operation of the manufactured product. In order to assist in detecting the presence of small particles and to gain an understanding as to what causes their presence during the manufacturing process, it is vital to be able to determine the chemical composition of those particles. Current methods of carrying out this task are incapable of coping with the nanometre size of particles that cause major problems today when such a process is carried out in a conventional electron microscope. The investigators of this proposal intend to further optimise the present invention to suit demonstration to potential scientific instrument manufacturers who could be interested in licensing this technology . The investigators have identified a list of such world-leading manufacturers who will be visited and presented with representative results from the current set-up and those interested in further discussion leading to licensing of the technology will be invited to York for a demonstration. Finally, the investigators will work closely with a leading British electron microscope manufacturer to adapt the new invention on one of their SEMs. Obducat Camscan will make available one of their latest microscope models, the Apollo 300, to demonstrate the new invention.