Electron Thermal Microscopy

TL;DR

Electron thermal microscopy leverages electron microscopes to achieve high-resolution, real-time thermal imaging at the nanoscale, surpassing traditional infrared methods without sacrificing speed.

Contribution

This paper introduces electron thermal microscopy, a novel technique that overcomes infrared thermal microscopy resolution limits using electron microscopy for real-time nanoscale thermal imaging.

Findings

Achieves 30 thermal images per second over 16μm^2 field-of-view

Detects liquid-solid transition of nanoscale islands for temperature mapping

Supported by electrical and thermal modeling

Abstract

The progress of semiconductor electronics toward ever-smaller length scales and associated higher power densities brings a need for new high-resolution thermal microscopy techniques. Traditional thermal microscopy is performed by detecting infrared radiation with far-field optics, where the resolution is limited by the wavelength of the light. By adopting a serial, local-probe approach, near-field and scanned-probe microscopies can surpass this limit but sacrifice imaging speed. In the same way that electron microscopy was invented to overcome the resolution limits of light microscopy, we here demonstrate a thermal imaging technique that uses an electron microscope to overcome the limits of infrared thermal microscopy, without compromising imaging speed. With this new technique, which we call electron thermal microscopy, temperature is resolved by detecting the liquid-solid transition of arrays of nanoscale islands, producing thermal maps in real-time (30 thermal images per second over a 16um^2 field-of-view). The experimental demonstration is supported by combined electrical and thermal modeling.