ZEISS GeminiSEM for Materials by ZEISS Research Microscopy Solutions

"The Merlin SEM microscope is a very nice system from the resolution point of view. It can work at very low voltages (down to 100 V) and with the so-called in-lens detector, a secondary electron detector provides low-noise and high resolution images in a broad range of working energies. We exploit the stability in time of the field-emission electron gun for lithography, both at 30 kV and at 20 kV. The presence of an electrostatic beam blanker, together with an external pattern generator allows us to use this microscope as a powerful tool for e-beam lithography too. As a bonus feature, the Merlin can be employed to perform very nice imaging on insulators, exploiting a very smart technique based on a charge compensator, injecting nitrogen gas into the vacuum chamber (with a special nozzle just near by the sample surface). The system can be also employed for X-ray spectroscopy and spatially-resolved compositional maps, nanomanipulation, or STEM by exploiting all the vacuum chamber ports."