Introduction

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) permits the observation and characterization of heterogeneous organic and inorganic materials on a nanometer (nm) to micrometer (μm) scale. The popularity of the SEM stems from its capability of obtaining three-dimensional-like images of the surfaces of a very wide range of materials. SEM images are used in a wide variety of media from scientific journals to popular magazines to the movies. Although the major use of the SEM is to obtain topographic images in the magnification range 10–10,000x, the SEM is much more versatile, as we shall now see.