Table of Contents
DIY electron microscope
| Brmsem | |
|---|---|
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| founder: | mrkva |
| depends on: | |
| interested: | status=active |
| software license: | - |
| hardware license: | - |
~~META: status = active &relation firstimage = :project:sem.jpg ~~
Overview
Goal of this project is to assess whether is possible to build a scanning electron microscope in DIY conditions. There are various sensors that can be used together with SEM - the easiest one to get running is probably the secondary emission detector. However it would be great if we would be able to use backscatter detectors or even X-ray detector for EDX spectroscopy one day!
It will also be necessary to get some kind of metal sputtering working to be able to view non-metallic samples.
Bill of materials
(We'll begin with coarse building blocks and discuss details later)
- Vacuum chamber (we have one, check if it is usable)
- Base for vacuum chamber with airtight connectors for high and low voltage leads
- Vacuum pumps system for fine vacuum
- Various power supplies (accelerating voltage, focusing voltage, heater), exact parameters will have to be calculated
- electron gun: electron source, electron optics
- detector (scintillator + photomultiplier)
- display - for initial tests two channel analog oscilloscope with XY mode and z input should be enough (mrkva can provide one). Later, ADC and digital processing is desirable
Proposed roadmap
- Build and test vacuum pump system to see if we can achieve low enough vacuum (something in the range of 10^-6 Pa will be necessary)
