Journal
MICROSCOPY
Volume 66, Issue 3, Pages 187-197Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/jmicro/dfx007
Keywords
scanning electron microscopy; fine focusing; astigmatism correction; digital image processing; auditory modality; signal-to-noise ratio
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The current study describes a new support system for fine focusing and near-perfect astigmatism correction for scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The signal-to-noise ratio of a series of SEM images obtained from fast scan rates (TV scan) was adopted as a new metric for evaluating focus. Measured signal-to-noise ratio values were converted to an acoustic signal (sound wave frequency) using digital image processing techniques, enabling the SEM user to evaluate image focus using the auditory modality. Accurate focusing and correcting astigmatism in general-purpose SEM is traditionally timeconsuming and difficult. The proposed system may substantially reduce the required operation time for fine focusing. Moreover, the system is relatively immune to noise, successfully supporting focus and astigmatism correction with very noisy SEM images. Our proposed focus support system may be helpful for general-purpose SEM observation of a variety of specimens under a wide range of operating conditions.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available