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PROFESSIONAL
UNIVERSITY
Term Paper synopsis of Physics
Topic ~ construction working and uses of
S.E.M. and T.E.M.
Submitted to~ Submitted by~
Ms. Anita Thakur Name ~Gagandeep Singh
Class~ B.Tech C.S.E
Reg.No~10810557
Section~B1802
Roll No. 29

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost I thank my teacher who has assigned me this
term paper to bring out my creative capabilities.
I express my gratitude to my parents for being a continuous
source of encouragement and for all their financial aids given to
me.
I would like to acknowledge the assistance provided to me by
the library staff of LPU Phagwara.
My heartful gratitude to my friends, roommate, for helping me a
lot to complete my work in time.

The scanning electron microscope (SEM):-

It is a type of electron microscope that images the sample surface by scanning it
with a high-energy beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern. The electrons interact
with the atoms that make up the sample producing signals that contain information
about the sample's surface topography, composition and other properties such as
electrical conductivity.
It produces many types of signals include secondary electrons, back scattered
electrons (BSE), characteristic x-rays , light , specimen current and transmitted
electrons. These types of signal all require specialized detectors for their detection
that are not usually all present on a single machine.
Due to the way these images are created, SEM micrographs have a very large
depth of field yielding a characteristic three-dimensional appearance useful for
understanding the surface structure of a sample. This is exemplified by the
micrograph of pollen shown to the right. A wide range of magnifications is
possible, from about x 25 to about 250,000, about 250 times the magnification
limit of the best light microscopes.
For the same reason BSE imaging can image colloidal gold immuno-labels of 5 or
10 nm diameter, that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to detect in
secondary electron images in biological specimens. Characteristic X-rays are
emitted when the electron beam removes an inner shell electron from the sample,
causing a higher energy electron to fill the shell and release energy. These
characteristic x-rays are used to identify the composition and measure the
abundance of elements in the sample.

Scanning tunneling microscope (STM):-

It is also a powerful technique for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. STM
probes the density of states of a material using tunneling current. For STM, good
resolution is considered to be 0.1 nm lateral resolution and 0.01 nm depth
resolution.
The STM can be used not only in ultra high vacuum but also in air and various
other liquid or gas ambients, and at temperatures ranging from near zero kelvin to a
few 100˚c.
The STM is based on the concept of quantum tunnelling. When a conducting tip is
brought very near to a metallic or semiconducting surface, a bias between the two
can allow electrons to tunnel through the vacuum between them.
What is Tunnelling????
Tunnelling is a functioning concept that arises from quantum mechanics. For
objects of very small mass, as is the electron, wavelike nature has a more
pronounced effect, so such an event, referred to as tunneling, has a measurable
probability.
Electrons behave as beams of energy, and in the presence of a potential U(z),
assuming 1-dimensional case, the energy levels ψn(z) of the electrons are given by
solutions to Schrödinger’s equation,

,
where ħ is the reduced Planck’s constant, z is the position, and m is the mass of an
electron[4]. If an electron of energy E is incident upon an energy barrier of height
U(z), the electron wave function is a traveling wave solution,
 ,
where

if E > U(z), which is true for a wave function inside the tip or inside the sample[4].
Inside a barrier, such as between tip and sample, E < U(z) so the wave functions
which satisfy this are decaying waves,

,
where

quantifies the decay of the wave inside the barrier.