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Updated: Dec 30, 2025
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Single-Digit Nanometer Electron-Beam Lithography with an Aberration-Corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope
Published on: September 14, 2018
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Beam displacement and blur caused by fast electron beam deflection
Lixin Zhang1, Mathijs W H Garming2, Jacob P Hoogenboom2
1School of Instrumentation and Optoelectronic Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China; Department of Imaging Physics, Delft University of Technology, Lorentzweg 1, 2628CJ, Delft, the Netherlands.
Ultramicroscopy
|January 26, 2020
Summary
Electrostatic beam blankers can generate pulsed electron beams for advanced microscopy. This study provides analytical expressions to minimize spot displacement and resolution loss, enabling high-resolution time-resolved electron microscopy.
Area of Science:
- Physics
- Materials Science
- Electron Microscopy
Background:
- Electrostatic beam blankers offer an alternative to photo-emission sources for pulsed electron beams.
- Previous research on beam blankers primarily focused on lithography, leaving imaging resolution effects under-explored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To derive analytical expressions for spot displacement and resolution loss in electrostatic beam blankers.
- To investigate the impact of focus alignment within deflector plates on these parameters.
- To analyze the performance of linear voltage ramp-driven beam blankers.
Main Methods:
- Derivation of general analytical expressions for spot displacement and resolution loss.
- Analysis of the sensitivity of these measures to conjugate focus alignment.
- Specific case study of a linear voltage ramp-driven beam blanker.
Main Results:
- Analytical expressions quantify spot displacement and resolution loss.
- Spot displacement and focus blur can be minimized to the electron beam probe size scale.
- Optimizing focus position allows minimizing spot displacement or eliminating blur, but not both simultaneously.
Conclusions:
- The derived expressions aid in characterizing and designing electrostatic beam blankers.
- This work facilitates the generation of picosecond electron pulses for high-resolution time-resolved electron microscopy.
- Optimized beam blankers can enhance capabilities in ultrafast electron microscopy and time-resolved cathodoluminescence.
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