HIGH-RESOLUTION TECHNIQUES FOR THE SCANNING PROTON MICROPROBE

Several techniques have been developed, enabling the scanning proton microprobe to obtain quantitative and qualitative information on a specimen at very high resolution. The technique of scanning transmission ion microscopy (STIM) generally provides information on areal density. Channeling contrast microscopy (CCM) provides crystallographic information and, as generally performed with backscattering, it is a powerful technique, though not a very high resolution one. However, the combination channeling-STIM does provide very high resolution. Of equal importance to STIM techniques is the very low radiation dose required. STIM is a very efficient and sensitive technique which has been applied to stereo imaging, 2-D tomography and 3-D tomography. Efficient methods of collecting and handling quantitative scanning data have been essential to all these developments.