Unlocking new contrast in a scanning helium microscope.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26727303.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10189 and PMC identifier 4725762.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Delicate structures (such as biological samples, organic films for polymer electronics and adsorbate layers) suffer degradation under the energetic probes of traditional microscopies. Furthermore, the charged nature of these probes presents difficulties when imaging with electric or magnetic fields, or for insulating materials where the addition of a conductive coating is not desirable. Scanning helium microscopy is able to image such structures completely non-destructively by taking advantage of a neutral helium beam as a chemically, electrically and magnetically inert probe of the sample surface. Here we present scanning helium micrographs demonstrating image contrast arising from a range of mechanisms including, for the first time, chemical contrast observed from a series of metal-semiconductor interfaces. The ability of scanning helium microscopy to distinguish between materials without the risk of damage makes it ideal for investigating a wide range of systems.