Low-voltage electron microscope

A Low-voltage electron microscope (LVEM) is an <a href="/facts/Electron_microscope/XtaBktwF">electron microscope</a> which operates at accelerating voltages of a few kilo<a href="/facts/Electronvolt/YMT1fqX9">electronvolts</a> (keV) or less. Traditional electron microscopes use accelerating voltages in the range of 10-1000 keV.
Low voltage imaging in transmitted electrons is possible in many new scanning electron detectors.
A low cost alternative is a dedicated tabletop low voltage <a href="/facts/Transmission_electron_microscopy/Rpr8jpCn">transmission electron microscope</a>. While its architecture is very similar to a conventional transmission electron microscope, it has a few key differences that enable it to take advantage of a 5 keV electron source, but trading off many advantages of higher voltage operations, including higher resolution, the possibility of X-ray microanalysis and <a href="/facts/EELS/jLd6sMUb">EELS</a>, etc. Recently a new low voltage transmission electron microscope has been introduced that operates at variable voltage ranges between 6–25 kV.

Low-voltage electron microscope open-in-new

Low-voltage electron microscope