A New Low-Cost Image Intensifier for Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract

An efficient electron microscope image intensifier (EMII) chain with closed-circuit television image display should feature the following characteristics:- The signal of a single incoming electron should be raised well above the equipment noise.- The spatial resolution of the EMII-chain should not be worse than the product of available electron optical magnification and the desired specimen resolution.- The spatial resolution of the TV-system, multiplied by the magnification factor between the intensified image and its size on the camera tube face, should not be better than the spatial resolution of the image intensifier (the lowest reasonable bandwidth should be selected).In this paper we present a new type of EMII system which fulfills these basic features within the framework of a comparatively high performance-to-cost ratio system. We have been using two medium-resolution microchannelplates in series as an image intensifier (resolution approximately 50 microns), featuring a gain of more than 106with practicably negligible noise.