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XpertEze : Developing Embedded Intelligence for the Scanning Electron Microscope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

NHM Caldwell ,
BC Breton  and
DM Holburri
NHM Caldwell
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK
BC Breton
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK
DM Holburri
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, Cambridge University, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK
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Abstract

The second generation of computer-controlled scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), i.e. instruments directed by software executing on conventional personal computers (PC-SEMs), has become the industry standard. Although limited automation has been incorporated by most manufacturers, these features do not significantly alleviate the requirement for operator expertise to attain optimal performance from the microscope. Our approach to the expertise deficit has been to pursue a knowledge-based approach to microscope control, encapsulating human knowledge in software to achieve expert performance. The task of SEM operation was decomposed into five phases - Specimen Preparation, SEM Preparation, SEM Initialisation, SEM Optimisation and External Analysis - and the central three phases were modelled in detail. A stand-alone prototype system (XpertEze) was developed to utilise this model for the LEO 400 series. A web-based version was implemented to support intelligent remote microscopy.

A stand-alone knowledge-based system has several disadvantages: its user interface competes for screen space with the conventional control software, its speed of execution is reduced as its instructions must be transferred via application programming interfaces to the microscope, and the operator must learn and manage two sets of software. Our ongoing work has been to remove these problems by incorporating the XpertEze system directly within the control system.

Type
Instrument Automation (Organized by W. Deruijter and C. Potter)
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 7 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis 2001, Microscopy Society of America 59th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 35th Annual Meeting, Long Beach, California August 5-9, 2001 , August 2001 , pp. 966 - 967
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2001

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References

references

1.Caldwell, NHMet al. Electron Microscopy and Analysis 1997, 53.Google Scholar
2.Caldwell, NHMet al. Applications and Innovations in Expert Systems V (1997), 127.Google Scholar
3.Caldwell, NHMet al. Proc. 12th European Congress on Electron Microscopy (2000), Vol. 3, 411.Google Scholar
4.Caldwell, NHM and Breton, BC acknowledge the financial support of LEO Electron Microscopy Ltd. and the Isaac Newton Trust. The authors acknowledge the work of David Hubbard (LEO) in creating the new user interface and thank him for fruitful discussions on system architecture.Google Scholar