8 Alignment procedure of the Secondary Column

To align the instrument, it is necessary to start from the end, which is the projection, before going up along the machine and finally align the primary column. Without a good alignment of the secondary column, the image of the primary beam will be deformed or in the worst case, it will not be possible to see the beam.

Before aligning the secondary column, it is necessary to turn on a source first in order to see the secondary beam image. Note that it is not necessary to have a perfect alignment of the primary beam at this step, just a beam which allow to see a secondary beam is enough.

The following alignment procedure for the secondary column is described using Cs source at Source HV = +10kV, sample HV = +5kV with ¹³³Cs⁺ secondary positive ion detection.