Calculations of time-of-flight aberrations in practical electrostatic electron
lenses using the differential algebraic method
Yongfeng Kang, Jingyi Zhao
n
, Tiantong Tang
Key Laboratory for Physical Electronics and Devices of the Ministry of Education, Xi
0
an Jiaotong University, Xi
0
an 710049, PR China
article info
Article history:
Received 7 August 2012
Received in revised form
6 September 2012
Accepted 6 September 2012
Available online 13 September 2012
Keywords:
A different algebra method
High order TOF aberrations
Electrostatic electron lens
abstract
The high order time-of-flight (TOF) aberrations in a practical electrostatic electron lens are calculated
using the differential algebraic (DA) method. The electrostatic fields of the electrostatic lens, which are
calculated by the FEM methods, are in the form of discrete arrays. Thus, the proposed DA method is
applicable for engineering designs, and programs are written to compute up to fifth order TOF
aberrations of practical electrostatic electron lenses. An example is given, and TOF aberrations up to the
fifth order are calculated. It is proven that the numerical results for the electrostatic fields in the form of
discrete arrays have a good accuracy compared with the theoretical solutions. The accuracy is limited
only by the accuracy of the numerical computation of the fields and the numerical computation
algorithms for interpolation and integration. Finally, a practical electrostatic electron lens is analysed
and discussed as an example.
& 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In the problems related to the time of flight (TOF) of electron
optical instruments, including TOF analysers and streak image
tubes, it is necessary to determine the performance of the system
and to fabricate lenses and apertures that consider the effects of
aberration. The higher spatial and temporal resolution and higher
transfer efficiency of these scientific instruments depend on
aberration corrections, including spatial focusing and imaging
aberrations and TOF aberrations. The spatial focusing and imaging
aberrations have been widely studied; the third order spherical
aberration and the first order chromatic aberration can be
corrected very well [1–8]. However, the high-order TOF aberra-
tions have rarely been considered.
The differential algebraic method is a powerful and promising
technique in computer numerical analysis. When applied to
nonlinear dynamics systems, the arbitrary high-order transfer
properties of the systems can be computed directly with high
precision [9–12]. However, the existing DA methods for calculat-
ing the high-order TOF aberrations of electron optical systems,
which were previously developed by Cheng [13,14], can be
applied only to those problems where the electric/magnetic fields
are expressed in analytic forms. Hence, they are not applicable to
engineering design. In this paper, the DA theory, operation
method and algorithm are investigated in detail, and the
DA method is applied for the calculation of fifth order TOF
aberrations of practical electrostatic electron lenses whose elec-
tric/magnetic fields are expressed in the forms of discrete arrays,
for example, the fields computed by the FEM method. An example
is given to show that the numerical results have good accuracy
compared with the analytical results. Finally, a practical electro-
static electron lens is analysed and discussed as an example.
2. The DA method for high-order TOF aberrations of practical
electrostatic electron lenses
The TOF properties of a charged particle optical system can be
described by a transfer map of a differential algebra super-
number as follows [13,14]:
T
f
¼ Rðr
0
,
d
Þð1Þ
where T
f
denotes the TOF at the final plane, r
0
denotes the initial
coordinates and ray slopes of a particle, and
d
contains other
systemic parameters of interest. Then, @R/@r
0
denotes the TOF
aberrations with respect to the initial conditions (geometrical
aberrations), while @R/@
d
corresponds to the TOF aberrations
introduced due to dispersion of the momentum, mass or energy
of electrons. For simplicity, we do not distinguish between these
factors and only take the dispersion of the mass of (
D
m/m
0
) as the
systematic parameter
d
, referred as the TOF aberration hereafter.
Then, the TOF of an electron can be described by an expression
in an electrostatic electron lens in the laboratory Cartesian
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journal home page: www.elsevier.com/locate/nima
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in
Physics Research A
0168-9002/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2012.09.013
n
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jingyi.zhao@foxmail.com (J. Zhao).
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 697 (2013) 13–16