nvestigation of the Effect of Magnification,Accelerating Voltage, and Working Distance on the 3D DigitalReconstruction Techniques

In this study, the effect of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) parameters such as magnification (M), accelerating voltage (V),and working distance (WD) on the 3D digital reconstruction technique, as thefirst step of the quantitative characterization offracture surfaces with SEM, was investigated. The 2D images were taken via a 4-Quadrant Backscattered Electron (4Q-BSE)detector. In this study, spherical particles of Ti-6Al-4V (15-45μm) deposited on the silicon substrate were used. It was observedthat the working distance has a significant influence on the 3D digital rebuilding method via SEM images. The results showedthat the best range of the working distance for our system is 9 to 10 mm. It was shown that by increasing the magnification to1000x, the 3D digital reconstruction results improved. However, there was no significant improvement by increasing themagnification beyond 1000x. In addition, results demonstrated that the lower the accelerating voltage, the higher the precisionof the 3D reconstruction technique, as long as there are clean backscattered signals. The optimal condition was achieved whenmagnification, accelerating voltage, and working distance were chosen as 1000x, 3 kV, and 9 mm, respectively.