Information and Dose in the Scanning Transmission Ion Microscope
At an earlier meeting [1], we discussed information retrieval in the scanning transmission ion microscope (STIM) compared with the electron microscope at the same energy. We treated elastic scattering contrast, using total elastic cross sections; relative damage was estimated from energy loss data. This treatment is valid for “thin” specimens, where the incident particles suffer only single scattering. Since proton cross sections exceed electron cross sections, a given specimen (e.g., 1 μg/cm2 of carbon at 25 keV) may be thin for electrons but “thick” for protons. Therefore, we now extend our previous analysis to include multiple scattering. Our proton results are based on the calculations of Sigmund and Winterbon [2], for 25 keV protons on carbon, using a Thomas-Fermi screened potential with a screening length of 0.0226 nm. The electron results are from Crewe and Groves [3] at 30 keV.