Aberration-corrected electron microscopy imaging for nanoelectronics applications

Abstract

This paper addresses advances in electron microscopy that were accomplished over the past years with the incorporation of new electron optical components such as aberration correctors, monochromators or high brightness guns. Many of these developments are currently pursued within the DoE's TEAM project. As a result electron microscopy has reached 50 pm resolution. In this paper it is shown how the resolution improvement has helped to boost signal to noise ratios enabling a detection of single atoms across the Periodic Table of Elements. The described achievements allow for investigations of single point defects in nanoelectronic devices even if printed on single sheets of carbon atoms (graphene). Further it is now possible to access depth information from single projections with a precision that has reached interatomic distances. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.