• Ceramist
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.368-380
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• 2019

A ceramic is used as a key material in various fields. Accordingly, the use of scanning electron microscopy is increased for the purpose of evaluating the reliability and defects of advanced ceramic materials. The scanning electron microscope is developed to overcome the limitations of optical microscopy and uses accelerated electrons for imaging. Various signals such as SE, BSE and characteristic X-rays provide useful information about the surface microstructure of specimens and, the content and distribution of chemical components. The development of electron guns, such as FEG, and the improved lens system combined with the advanced in-lens detectors and STEM-in-SEM system have expanded the applications of SEM. Automated SEM-EDS analysis also greatly increases the amount of data, enabling more statistically reliable results. In addition, X-ray CT, XRF, and WDS, which are installed in scanning electron microscope, have transformed SEM a more versatile analytical equipment. The performance and specifications of the scanning electron microscope to evaluate ceramics were reviewed and the selection criteria for SEM analysis were described.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.9-14
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• 2005

The nature of the signals collected by an SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) in order to form images are all dependent on the detector used to collect them, and the quality of an acquired image is strongly influenced by detector performance. Therefore, the development of detector with high performance is very important in pulling up the resolution of SEM This study presents the secondary electron detector for use in scanning electron microscope, electric circuit and I/V conversion circuit for driving that detector.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2006.04a
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• pp.132-134
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• 2006

To improve equipment throughput and device yield, a malfunction in plasma equipment should be accurately diagnosed. A recognition model for plasma diagnosis was constructed by applying neural network to scanning electron microscope (SEM) image of plasma-etched patterns. The experimental data were collected from a plasma etching of tungsten thin films. Faults in plasma were generated by simulating a variation in process parameters. Feature vectors were obtained by applying direct and wavelet techniques to SEM Images. The wavelet techniques generated three feature vectors composed of detailed components. The diagnosis models constructed were evaluated in terms of the recognition accuracy. The direct technique yielded much smaller recognition accuracy with respect to the wavelet technique. The improvement was about 82%. This demonstrates that the direct method is more effective in constructing a neural network model of SEM profile information.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.76-82
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• 2016

Aloe vera has been used in the pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic industry for its therapeutic properties. However, there are not many current studies on the microstructure of A. vera compared to studies on the chemical constituents and health efficacy of A. vera. Therefore, we compared the morphology of an A. vera leaf using an optical microscope, a conventional scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a cryo-SEM. Especially, this study focused on observing the gel in the inner leaf of A. vera, which is challenging using standard imaging techniques. We found that cryo-SEM is most suitable method for the observation of highly hydrated biomaterials such as A. vera without removing moisture in samples. In addition, we found the optimal analytical conditions of cryo-SEM. The sublimation conditions of $-100^{\circ}C$ and 10 minutes possibly enable the surface of the inner leaf of A. vera to be observed in their "near life-like" state with retaining moisture. The experiment was repeated with A. arborescens and A. saponaria to confirm the feasibility of the conditions. The results of this study can be applied towards the basic research of aloe and further extend previous knowledge about the surface structures of the various succulent plants.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1271-1276
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• 2007

The most powerful analytical equipment usually comes at the cost of having the highest demand for space. Where electron microscopes has traditionally required a room to themselves, not just for reasons of their size but because of ancillary demands for pipes and service. The simple optical microscopes, of course, can occupy the desk-top, but because their performance is limited by the wavelength of light, their powers of magnification and resolution are inferior to that of the electron microscope. Mini SEM will sit comfortably on a desk-top but offers magnification and resolution performances much closer to that of a standard SEM. This new technique extends the scope of SEM as a high-resolution microscope, relatively cheap and widely available imaging tool, for a wider variety of samples.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.513-517
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• 2004

The nature of the signals collected by an SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) in order to form images are all dependent on the detector used to collect them, and the quality of an acquired image is strongly influenced by detector performance. Therefore, the development of detector with high performance is very important in pulling up the resolution of SEM. In this article, electron beam-specimen interactions, the detection principle of secondary electrons and backscattered electrons, and the structure of a conventional detector are described. The structure of an experimental apparatus for the future study on our hopeful novel electron detector is presented as well.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.71-75
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• 2016

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) offers two-dimensional (2D) micrographs of three-dimensional (3D) objects due to its inherent operating mechanisms. To overcome this limitation, other devices have been used for quantitative morphological analysis. Many efforts have been made on the applications of software-based approaches to 3D reconstruction and measurements by SEM. Based on the acquisition of two stereo images, a multi-view technique consists of two parts: (i) geometric calibration and (ii) image matching. Quantitative morphological parameters such as height and depth could be nondestructively measured by SEM combined with special software programs. It is also possible to obtain conventional surface parameters such as roughness and volume of biomedical specimens through 3D SEM surface reconstruction. There is growing evidence that conventional 2D SEM without special electron detectors can be transformed to 3D SEM for quantitative measurements in biomedical research.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.379-391
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• 2010

In order to understand the mechanism of cementation of soft soils treated with bacteria, three types of specimens(untreated, normal bacteria concentration treated, and high bacteria concentration treated) were made. Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM), EDX and X-ray diffraction(XRD) analyses were performed on the soft silt and loose sand specimens. Compared with the untreated specimen, a clearer cementation between particles was observed in the high bacteria concentration treated specimen. Based on the scanning electron microscope(SEM) EDX analyses, more calcium carbonate was observed in the specimen treated with high bacteria concentration than other specimens. On the basis of the preliminary results, it appears that microbial cementation can occur in the soft soil. Further study on the cementation of soils using bacteria is necessary to validate this result.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.1282-1287
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• 2007

The nature of the signal collected by an SEM(Scanning Electron Microscope) in order to form images are all dependent on the detector used to collect them, and the quality of an acquired images is strongly influenced by detector performance. Therefore, the development of detector with high performance is very important for improving on the resolution of SEM. This paper presents the manufacture of secondary electron detector and the optimal position of electron detector through numerical analysis in SEM.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.153-158
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• 2007

The present study covers numerical analysis of a thermionic scanning electron microscope(SEM) column. The SEM column contains an electron optical system in which electrons are emitted and moved to form a focused beam, and this generates secondary electrons from the specimen surfaces, eventually making an image. The electron optical system mainly consists of a thermionic electron gun as the beam source, the lens system, the electron control unit, and the vacuum unit. For a systematic design of the electron optical system, the beam trajectories are investigated through numerical analyses by tracing the ray path of the electron beams, and the quality of resulting image is evaluated from the analysis results.