Fully automated or semi-automated scanning electron microscopes (SEM) are now commonly used in semiconductor production and other forms of manufacturing. The industry requires that an automated instrument must be routinely capable of 5 nm resolution (or better) at 1.0 kV accelerating voltage for the measurement of nominal 0.25-0.35 micrometer semiconductor critical dimensions. Testing and proving that the instrument is performing at this level on a day-by-day basis is an industry need and concern which has been the object of a study at IMIST. The fundamentals and results are discussed in this paper.

Al Soeldner's article in the November issue of this publication entitled “Staying Alive” contains a lot of good, solid advice that all of us who operate service laboratories should take to heart. Whether our laboratories are public or private, his advice on sticking to what we know how to do, understanding how to put the client first in the “service” environment and establish a “user friendly” climate is sound and should be clearly heard by all.

There is, however, one point on which I do not agree with Al, and that is the scope of work which is appropriate for various laboratories. While he does discuss the possible problem of “agency policy” which may conflict with offering services to a broader user base, he might not emphasis that the problem created by the agency policy (if it exists) is probably based on a solid understanding of the legal climate in which we all operate.

In recent years, many developments in imaging instrumentation and support technologies have put in question the conventional way of working with images. Conversion from analog to digital imaging is pursued at all levels of microscopy driven by the benefits of new forthcoming digital precision imaging technologies for visualization and quantification of the image information. These developments will revolutionize microscopy by extending the information retrieval from the level of the full-frame image to the level of individual pixels.

Los Aiamos Laboratory and VayTek, Inc. recently announced the development of a prototype far the “Scanning Computed Confocal Imager” or Virtual Pinhole Microscope. This breakthrough technology takes advantage of existing improvements in digital image systems, but configures functional subsystems in a novel way that eliminates many of the limitations and much of the expense associated with conventional confocal imagery.

One of the key elements of the new Imager is the use of a “virtual” aperture. The virtual aperture is implemented in software on a host computer, such as a penti urn-based computer or a Power Mac. It's possible, with this system, to adjust key parameters (such as effective aperture size) to optimize the image even after the basic data are acquired. Several algorithms have been used to produce images similar to those acquired through conventional confocal microscopy.

Earlier versions of these essays have been posted primarily and repeatedly on the internet newsgroup <sci.research.careers> for approximately one year (March 1995 to March 1996). A number of versions are archived at a number of sites. These essays were written in the public interest and for the benefit of younger people who are in the grad. school to postdoc pipeline. This edition was cleaned up, reorganized somewhat, slightly shortened, and brought up to date.

People who are in the grad. school to postdoc pipeline are, for the most part, hoping to see their dreams come true with a real and decent career job in science. The purpose of this document is to inform these people about the realities that will be in conflict with their dreams.

The Rare-Earth Laves phases RE-Fe2 (RE represent the Rare-Earth) show large magnetostrictive properties, especially at room temperature. These materials are well characterized when in bulk form, but they have rarely been studied as thin films and one can expect some important effects due to epitaxial growth.

A few single crystal layers of RE-Fe2 have been studied (YFe2, TbFe2, DyFe2, ErFe2: and Dy0.7Tb0.3Fe2 known as Terfenol-D). The thickness of these different layers are between 5 and 20 nm and with [110] as a growth direction have been epitaxied. They have been deposited with a Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) in an ultra high vacuum chamber. A [1120] sapphire substrate is recovered by a [110] niobium buffer. The RE and the iron are then co-deposited on the substrate which is maintained at 500°C. Lastly, an Yttrium layer is deposited on the Rare Earth material at a temperature close to ambient.

Mr. John Mardinly of Intel Corporation, former president of NCSM, gave the Physical Science Presentation at the December 7, 1995, NCSM meeting held in Albany. CA. “Applications of Microscopy in the Microelectronics Industry” was the speaker's topic. Mr. Mardinly began by giving some background on integrated circuits. He had wafers to show as examples while stating that the value of each one exceeds $100,000 at S500 per chip and there are numerous chips on each wafer. The individual chip he showed had 3.1 million transistors, with 237 pins and 237 connections per device. The new Pentium Pro will have a mind-boggling 5.5 million transistors packed onto the same size chip.

California State University, Hayward has successfully demonstrated remote control of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) using Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). The development of digital imaging technology has iead to exploration and testing of networking strategies for sharing scientific instrumentation. The concept of shared instrumentation is appealing to both academia and private enterprise. Networking access presents the opportunity to teach scanning electron microscopy to a large number of students using multiple desktop computers. Video images can also be projected onto large screens in classrooms or as a distant learning resource. Remote shared access to scientific equipment provides certain advantages such as access to a wider variety of resources, direct interaction without hazard to people or equipment, ability to combine resources into larger virtual instruments, rapid access to available resources, and pooling of knowledge by a larger community.The advent of high speed networks such as ATM offers the possibility of integrated solutions to communication and control.

A series of upgrades of an Electron Microprobe X-ray Analyzer (EPMA) were made to expand capabilities, increase efficiency, and cut costs. High technology EPUA features were acquired with cost effective expenditures. The driving force for our upgrade was to meet the continuing needs of corporate customers as well as many small companies which come to us for low-cost/high quality EPMA services.

On the eighth day, chemical analysis began. Adam, recovering after cooperating with God in creating Eve, felt the first pangs of hunger. Looking around, he spied a pile of stones left over after creation of some nearby mountains. He rejected a soft friable sandstone and chose a hard granite rock, took careful aim at a rabbit, and hit it squarely between the eyes. This was the basis for the first real meal in the Garden of Eden. A day or two later, Eue took a whiff of the rabbit carcass, thought for a moment, then fed it to the dog.

Thus, the first chemical analytical instruments were Adam's eye and hand and Eve's nose. These, plus taste, sufficed by themselves for a long time thereafter but, eventually, refinements were necessary.

Having shopped for an inexpensive but powerful digital imaging system for the last four years, I have finally found a device that will satisfy even the most frugal budget. The Snappy Video Snapshot by Play, Incl, is a 24-bit true color frame grabber that plugs into your PC printer port. After plugging the Snappy device into your printer port (Figure 1) and spending approximately six minutes loading the Snappy software provided, you can connect a color or black and white camera, VCR, or television set and capture your first digital image. Because the device plugs into a printer port, it is completely portable. A switch box is needed if you will be changing between digital image acquisition and printing tasks frequently.

As if lifted from the script pages of a previously aired installment of the popular Friday night “istherelifeoutthereism”, one group of microscopic parasitic trematodes will puncture, overrun and terrorize not one, not two, but three distinct and disparate hosts to survive and breed. Known as the Ascocotyle complex of trematode worms, these well-designed hitch-hikers sport a crown of one (Figure 1) and sometimes two rows of 15-20 spines surrounding a very muscular oral sucker (Figure 2), as well as a ventrally placed body sucker and a full complement of smaller, but sharp, body spines (Figure 3), which they employ to prevent easy dislodging from their intended host. The life cycle for these brackish water travelers begins in a brood sac developing within amnicolid snails (such as Cerathidia) which graze the bottom of tidal marshes and ingest the trematode eggs.

Part 1 of this series described how focused ion beam (FIB) microsurgery is used to successfully cross-section and prepare materialspecific samples for SEM and TEM analysis. In Part 2, we detailed how FIB is also the tool of choice to prepare site-specific samples, particularly for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis. In this final article of this series, we describe actual sample preparation, cutting a selected area la size and mounting it on a grid for FIB preparation. Focused ion beams are very useful in preparing TEM specimens that have unique characteristics. In particular, the ability of such systems to image submicron features within a structure has allowed accurate identification of the precise place to make a membrane.