Effect of surface mechanical finishes on charging ability of electron irradiated PMMA in a scanning electron microscope

Charging of Polymethyl Methacrylate insulators (PMMA), in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is studied owing to a time resolved current method. This method allows the evolution of trapped charge versus time and the charging time constant to be deduced. The effect of surface roughness change on the ability of PMMA to trapped charge is highlighted. The results show that the trapped charge at the steady state decreases when the roughness increases in the micrometer range while the time constant of charging increases with surface roughness. This behaviour is due to the increase of leakage current and/or enhanced secondary electron emission (SEE). On the one hand, surface mechanical finishes allows, the build up charge in insulators submitted to an electron bombardment to be lowered. On the other hand this treatment allows the secondary electron emission to be raised for some specific applications.