Solutions to Charge Accumulation on Low Conductivity Surfaces in Imaging with Scanning Electron Microscopy

We experimentally addressed the surface charge accumulation problem in imaging poorly conductive samples, including but not limited to the ceramics, β-cyclodextrin crystalline, SiO₂, biological tissues and bacteria, with scanning electron microscopy. The impact of, mechanisms for and solutions to the charge accumulation problem were experimentally investigated. As shown in the experimental results, the proposed possible solutions could effectively ease the surface charge accumulation problems, such as lowering the acceleration voltage, using lower secondary electron detector, combining SE and a fraction of back scattering electron signals, acquiring image in fast scan mode, decreasing emission current, increasing pressure, and etc. We suggest that the solutions be of some technological interest in imaging samples with low conductivity.