SOME ASPECTS OF OPTIMIZING CONTRASTS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF JOINT MATERIALS IN THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

In the environmental scanning electron microscope, material joints of different atomic mass and different electrical conducting properties can easily be observed simultaneously without coating the specimen. For such heterogeneous materials, the quality of the image can be optimized with respect to contrast and resolution if the contrast types as well as their significance to the composition of the image are known.