Study of Coating Effect on TEM Sample Damage and Elemental Analysis

Electron beam induced film deposition has been found to be an effective method to protect the sample surface for both Focused Ion Beam (FIB) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis. It's known that the sample damage caused by low voltage electron beam assisted deposition should be nearly negligible while dealing with electron beam sensitive or temperature sensitive materials. Adhesive coating is also generally considered as an alternative to electron beam deposition, as a protective layer which minimizes the sample damage. However, samples prepared using low-voltage electron beam induced deposition are considered to be more favorable for X-ray Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) elemental analysis than ones prepared using adhesive coating. Important to note, that discussed in this paper conductive layer as a protection layer that doesn't cause physical damage, shows a good S/N (Signal to Noise) ratio for element analysis.