Services / Simulations and modeling /

Simulation of interaction trajectories between incident electron beam and specimen

General purpose

Casino is a program, where a Monte Carlo simulation of electron trajectory in solid is especially designed for low electron beam interactions in both bulk and thin foils. At once, X-rays and backscattered electrons in a scanning electron microscope can be simulated.

Principle of operation

Casino was programmed by the research team of Raynald Gauvin (Ph.D., Full professor at Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada). In general, the program is based on different models which unable to simulate the interaction between incident electron beam and solid. A sufficiently large amount of electron trajectories is assured by this simulation in a various solid with the aim to represent the condition used to image structures in a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Therefore, it is possible to predict theoretically the signals observed in the SEM.

Application of the technique

Since, simulation of the interaction between an incident electron beam and matter gives information about the depth of X-rays electrons, itcan be sufficiently used to:

• simulate interaction area in dependence on material type and accelerated voltages at once. (for example: to define appropriate voltage for energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis with regards to chemical composition of the sample or phase sizes within the microstructure)
• simulate the effect of sample tilting on specimen interaction volume which is very sufficient for EBSD measurement
• simulate an interaction volume of multilayer material system(semi-conductor engineering).

Typical case studies

Effect of the accelerated voltage on the interaction volume between an incident electron beam and specimen for aluminium
Effect of the chemical element (Al and Fe) on the interaction volume for certain accelerated voltage 15kV
Effect of the sample tilting on the interaction volume for certain accelerated voltage 15kV

Contact

Martin Nosko
Ľubomír Orovčík