Watch Professor Thiel's "Inside CNSE" video interview on the dual beam microscope and its applications 

Read Professor Thiel's Nanotechnology Now article: Critical Dimension Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy 

Degrees:

• Ph.D. (Materials Science), University of Washington, Seattle, 1995
• M.S. (Materials Science), University of Washington, Seattle, 1990
• B.S. (Physics; Metallurgical Engineering), University of Washington, Seattle, 1987

Research:

• low vacuum scanning electron microscopy
• critical dimension SEM metrology
• ion-solid interactions
• constitutive relationships in protein elastomers

Research description:

Professor Thiel's research is concerned with the development of new characterization tools and methodologies appropriate for nanotechnology. Very often, physical properties are limited by structural, chemical, and electronic inhomogeneities on the nanometer scale. As devices and processes become smaller, it therefore becomes more and more critical to understand and measure structure - property relationships on atomic dimensions. Accordingly, the major thrust of Thiel's research is in developing electron, ion, and photon based tools and techniques.

Low Vacuum Scanning Electron Microscopy
Electron microscopy is well established as one of the most powerful tools for the study of microstructure. Low vacuum instruments represent the latest evolution of scanning electron microscopes, and can offer a much richer variety of information on specimen characteristics. These tools allow routine examination of dielectric and insulating materials while avoiding complications due to charging effects. However, the processes that give rise to secondary electron emissions are complex, and not well understood for these materials. Furthermore, the presence of a low pressure gas in these instruments allows for a wide variety of electron-gas interactions that potentially also can be used to gain new insights into the nature of specimen.

Ion beam techniques are also emerging as key technologies for nanotechnology. Properly controlled, they can be used to both characterize and manipulate matter on the nanometer lengthscale. On the one hand, ion beams can be used to probe structure and chemistry in many of the same ways as electron beams. However, ion beams can also be used to deposit or remove material selectively. Underlying all of this is the need to understand ion-solid interactions, or how the kinetic and potential energies of an ion are imparted into a target material, and how this gives rise to the emission of electrons, photons, and secondary ions. 

Selected Publications:

B.L. Thiel and M. Toth
Secondary Electron Contrast Mechanisms in Environmental SEM: Characterization of Dielectric Substances
Journal of Applied Physics review article (in press).

B.L. Thiel
Imaging and Analysis of Dielectric Materials by Low Vacuum Scanning Electron Microscopy
Institute of Materials Reviews, Vol. 49, 109-122 (2004).

B.L. Thiel
Master Curves for Gas Amplification in Low Vacuum and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy
Ultramicroscopy, Vol. 99, 35-47 (2004).

A.M. Donald and B.L. Thiel
ESEM Contrast and Applications to Wet Organic Materials, in Impact of Electron and Scanning Probe Microscopy on Materials Research
NATO ASI series, D.G. Rickerby (ed.), Kluwer, 415-444 (1999).  (I)

Awards:

• Sir Isaac Newton Trust Research Fellow, Cambridge University