ABSTRACT
A scanning electron microscope (SEM) “shines” highly accelerated electrons through high-voltage steering grids onto the object being imaged, and those scattered electrons are detected in much the same way that an old-timey television tube worked. An electron-sensitive detection layer lights up when scattered electrons strike it, the intensity being proportional to the number of electrons striking the screen, and we thus form a “ghost image” of the object. The remarkable advances associated with the micro/nanoelectronics revolution rest squarely on the fact that transistors can be simultaneously made both very, very small, and very, very fast. Closely related to the time scale of the universe, and very important in the context of micro/nanoelectronics applications, is the frequency scale of the universe. The micro/nanoelectronics world, infinitesimally small and blindingly fast, is rapidly redefining the human sense of scale in many fascinating ways.
