IDIOSYNCRASIES OF USING SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY TO STUDY SUPERHARD COMPOSITE MATERIALS AND MULTILAYER FILM COATINGS

摘要

The author discusses some hardware and software aspects of upgrading of analog scanning electron microscopes in order to improve their performance up to the level of modern digital microscopes. Microscopic structural observations have been performed on engineering multilayer film coatings, nanosized formations and a BN-based superhard composite material. A 4096 × 3072 pixel digitized image of a sample surface is demonstrated to be sufficient for macro- and microstructural characterization of the material.