Patent ID: 8779368

Claim:
A scintillation detection unit for the detection of back-scattered electrons for electron and ion microscopes having a column with a longitudinal axis, in which the scintillation detection unit consists of a body and at least one system for processing the light signal generated by a photodetector or a photodetector preceded with additional optical members where the inlet of this system is situated in close vicinity to the body of the scintillation detection unit and where the body is at least partly made of scintillation material, in which the body of the scintillation detection unit is at least partly situated in the column of an electron or ion microscope and is made up of at least one hollow part, where in the lower base of each hollow part bottom holes are made and in the upper base of each hollow part top holes are made for the passage of the primary beam of charged particles, while the longitudinal axis passes through the hollow, the bottom holes and the top holes, where height of body of scintillation detection unit measured in the direction of longitudinal axis is greater than one-and-a-half times the greatest width, measured in the direction perpendicular to longitudinal axis, of the hollow part with the greatest width, while in the case of using multiple hollow parts making up body its height in the direction of the longitudinal axis is given by the sum of the projections of the hollow parts employed on the longitudinal axis, where in the case that some of the projections overlap, the overlapping sections are added only once to the overall height and where the surface layers of the hollow part adjacent to longitudinal axis are either completely made up of active scintillating layer, or the active scintillating layer is at least partly applied to the surfaces of the hollow parts, while the bottom end of body of the scintillation detection unit is situated above the examined sample wherein the walls of the hollow parts are vacuum-sealed in the areas outside bottom holes and top holes and make up part of a vacuum-sealed jacket around the longitudinal axis, which is passed through by the primary beam of electrons.