Charging of insulators is a complex phenomenon to simulate since the accuracy of the simulations is very sensitive to the interaction of electrons with matter and electric fields. In this study, we report model improvements for a previously developed Monte-Carlo simulator to more accurately simulate samples that charge. The improvements include both modelling of low energy electron scattering and charging of insulators. The new first-principle scattering models provide a more realistic charge distribution cloud in the material, and a better match between non-charging simulations and experimental results. Improvements on charging models mainly focus on redistribution of the charge carriers in the material with an induced conductivity (EBIC) and a breakdown model, leading to a smoother distribution of the charges. Combined with a more accurate tracing of low energy electrons in the electric field, we managed to reproduce the dynamically changing charging contrast due to an induced positive surface potential.

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The electric field distribution and charging effects in Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were studied by extending a Monte-Carlo based SEM simulator by a fast and accurate multigrid (MG) based 3D electric field solver. The main focus is on enabling short simulation times with maintaining sufficient accuracy, so that SEM simulation can be used in practical applications. The implementation demonstrates a gain in computation speed, when compared to a Gauss-Seidel based reference solver is roughly factor of 40, with negligible differences in the result (~10−6 푉). In addition, the simulations were compared with experimental SEM measurements using also complex 3D sample, showing that i) the modelling of e-fields improves the simulation accuracy, and ii) multigrid method provide a significant benefit in terms of simulation time.@en