CORRECTION OF TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTIFACTS IN AUGER IMAGES USING 4 BACKSCATTERED ELECTRON DETECTORS

The York multi-spectral scanning Auger microscope has been used to examine the correlations between Auger and backscattered electron images collected simultaneously from an electron spectrometer and the quadrants of an Si p-n junction backscattered electron detector. Digital signal processing of the four backscattered electron images allows the complete characterisation of the surface topography and also gives the effective atomic number at each pixel of the image. The topographical images thus calculated can then be used to correct the topographical artefacts in the Auger images. This method, which allows quantitative surface analysis of samples with complicated surface topographies with no prior knowledge of the sample, is tested using a carbon-coated anisotropically etched Si sample.