Nebula: Monte Carlo simulator of electron–matter interaction

Monte Carlo simulations are frequently used to describe electron–matter interaction in the 0–50 keV energy range. It often takes hours to simulate electron microscope images using first-principle physical models. In an attempt to maintain a reasonable speed, empirical models are sometimes used. We present an open-source software package with...

Estimating Step Heights from Top-Down SEM Images

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is one of the most common inspection methods in the semiconductor industry and in research labs. To extract the height of structures using SEM images, various techniques have been used, such as tilting a sample, or modifying the SEM tool with extra sources and/or detectors. However, none of these techniques...

Model improvements to simulate charging in SEM

Charging of insulators is a complex phenomenon to simulate since the accuracy of the simulations is very sensitive to the interaction of electrons with matter and electric fields. In this study, we report model improvements for a previously developed Monte-Carlo simulator to more accurately simulate samples that charge. The improvements...