Surface chemical analysis — Determination of lateral resolution and sharpness in beam based methods with a range from nanometres to micrometres

This document describes methods for measuring lateral resolution and sharpness in imaging surface chemical analysis. It applies to all methods of surface analysis which use a beam to analyse the chemical composition of surfaces under defined settings of an instrument. It applies to scanning instruments, where a finely focused beam is scanned over the sample in a preselected field of view, as well as to full field imaging instruments, where the field of view is simultaneously imaged by a broad beam, an imaging lens system and a pixelated detector. The methods for measuring lateral resolution and sharpness are

— the straight edge method;

— the narrow line method;

— the grating method.

This document applies to instruments and methods that provide information on layers with nanometre thicknesses and to surfaces with nanometre‐sized structures and individual nano‐objects.