Reducing charging effects in scanning electron microscope images by Rayleigh contrast stretching method (RCS)

Area of Science:

• Microscopy and Image Analysis
• Materials Science
• Physics

Background:

• Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is crucial for high-resolution imaging.
• Charging effects in SEM can degrade image quality and obscure details.
• Existing image enhancement techniques often struggle to fully mitigate these artifacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel image processing technique for reducing charging artifacts in SEM images.
• To compare the effectiveness of the proposed method against established histogram equalization and post-processing techniques.
• To improve the clarity and diagnostic value of SEM imagery.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of Rayleigh contrast stretching by re-scaling image histograms.
• Application of contrast adjustment to enhance image quality and suppress artifacts.
• Comparative analysis with various histogram equalization (HE) extensions and post-processing methods (wavelet, spatial filtering).

Main Results:

• Rayleigh contrast stretching effectively reduces undesirable charging effects in SEM images.
• The proposed method demonstrates superior performance in image compensation compared to compared techniques.
• Qualitative and quantitative improvements in image clarity and artifact reduction were observed.

Conclusions:

• Rayleigh contrast stretching is a promising technique for enhancing SEM image quality.
• This method offers a significant advantage in mitigating charging artifacts over existing approaches.
• The findings contribute to improved SEM data acquisition and interpretation.