Extraction of topographic and material contrasts on surfaces from SEM images obtained by energy filtering detection with low-energy primary electrons

Secondary electron microscope (SEM) images have been obtained for practical materials using low primary electron energies and an in-lens type annular detector with changing negative bias voltage supplied to a grid placed in front of the detector. The kinetic-energy distribution of the detected electrons was evaluated by the gradient of the bias-energy dependence of the brightness of the images. This is divided into mainly two parts at about 500 V, high and low brightness in the low- and high-energy regions, respectively and shows difference among the surface regions having different composition and topography. The combination of the negative grid bias and the pixel-by-pixel image subtraction provides the band-pass filtered images and extracts the material and topographic information of the specimen surfaces.

► Scanning electron (SE) images contain many kind of information on material surfaces. ► We investigate energy-filtered SE images for practical materials. ► The brightness of the images is divided into two parts by the bias voltage. ► Topographic and material contrasts are extracted by subtracting the filtered images.