Development and commercialisation of a novel parallel magnetic analyser for surface studies

该项目旨在将一种新的电子能量分析仪商业化，该分析仪可以获取所研究样品表面的全光谱。本发明的独特特征是数据采集将并行地并且在宽角度范围上进行。这提供了对当前技术的改进，在数据采集速度方面接近两个数量级。此外，新发明在成本和对样品环境的适用性方面与现有技术相比是有利的，如在常规电子显微镜中所发现的。新分析仪的主要市场是半导体制造中的缺陷检查，但需要小尺寸元素分析的纳米技术的其他领域也将受益于这一发展。这是因为随着半导体器件尺寸变得越来越小，可能阻止制造产品的操作的不期望的颗粒的尺寸也变得越来越小。为了帮助检测小颗粒的存在并了解在制造过程中导致其存在的原因，能够确定这些颗粒的化学成分至关重要。当前执行该任务的方法不能处理纳米尺寸的颗粒，当在传统的电子显微镜中执行这样的过程时，纳米尺寸的颗粒今天引起主要问题。该提案的研究者打算进一步优化本发明，以适合向可能对许可该技术感兴趣的潜在科学仪器制造商进行演示。调查人员已经确定了一份世界领先的制造商名单，他们将接受访问，并向他们展示当前设置的代表性结果，那些有兴趣进一步讨论该技术许可的人将被邀请到约克进行演示。最后，研究人员将与英国一家领先的电子显微镜制造商密切合作，将这项新发明应用于他们的一台SEM上。Obducat Camscan将提供他们最新的显微镜模型之一，阿波罗300，以展示新发明。

This project aims to bring to commercialisation a new electron energy analyser that can acquire full spectra of the surfaces of investigated samples. The unique feature of this invention is that data acquisition will be carried out in parallel and over a wide angular range. This offers an improvement on current technology approaching two orders of magnitude in terms of speed of data acquisition. In addition, the new invention favourably compares with present technology on cost and suitability to sample environment as found in conventional electron mcroscopes. The principal market for the new analyser is in defect review in semiconductor manufacturing but other areas across nanotechnology where elemental analysis of small dimensions is required will also benefit from this development. This is because as semiconductor device sizes become ever smaller, so do the size of undesired particles that can prevent the operation of the manufactured product. In order to assist in detecting the presence of small particles and to gain an understanding as to what causes their presence during the manufacturing process, it is vital to be able to determine the chemical composition of those particles. Current methods of carrying out this task are incapable of coping with the nanometre size of particles that cause major problems today when such a process is carried out in a conventional electron microscope. The investigators of this proposal intend to further optimise the present invention to suit demonstration to potential scientific instrument manufacturers who could be interested in licensing this technology . The investigators have identified a list of such world-leading manufacturers who will be visited and presented with representative results from the current set-up and those interested in further discussion leading to licensing of the technology will be invited to York for a demonstration. Finally, the investigators will work closely with a leading British electron microscope manufacturer to adapt the new invention on one of their SEMs. Obducat Camscan will make available one of their latest microscope models, the Apollo 300, to demonstrate the new invention.