Design of multi-channel spectrometers for scanning ion/electron microscopes

Abstract

The potential advantages of multi-channel analysers over conventional sequential detection are well known and are active areas of research both for electron energy spectroscopy and ion mass spectroscopy. Their inherent advantage of capturing the entire spectrum in parallel, promises at least an order of magnitude speed up in data acquisition times for analytical techniques such as Auger Electron Microscopy (AES) and Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). Recently, a new set of multi-channel spectrometer designs have been proposed which involve the simultaneous adjustment of an array of electrode voltages/coil currents using computational simulation methods, departing from the traditional approach of using certain analytical field distributions or electrode shapes. The aim of this PhD work is to critically evaluate these more complex multi-channel designs and further develop them, transforming them into realistic engineering designs from which prototype analysers can be made.