Present and Future Views in SEM Techniques

Sachiko Inazato, Hirohide Otobe, Mika Yamashita, Kyouko Yonemitsu, Syunya Watanabe, Mami Konomi, Toshiko Kuba, Masateru Shibata, Hisao Moriya, Mamiko Sato, Emi Shindo and Noriko Murai

Abstract: The SEM user needs was became diversification and advancement by composition and miniaturization of observation sample. From the background, SEM has been evolved by increasing the resolution at low accelerating voltage and development of selectable signal detection system. As a result, we came to hear the opinion from users that operation and image interpretation came to have difficult.
Based on such situation, we made the questioner for investigation of SEM user being now. The contents of questioner are the present problems of SEM, the needs of future observation and analysis and etc. In addition, I carried out this investigation for various SEM users.
The result of investigation makes it clear the common problem on the various fields. We introduce the road map for solving problems that we divided a result provided here into categories such as observation technique, sample preparation, the image interpretation.

Key words: SEM, Road map, Future outlook