Measurement of localmass-thickness of thin samples and mass of individual

The calibrated scanning electronmicroscope (SEM) can be used also for quantitative imaging. Provided that SEMis equippedwith a very sensitive annular dark-field (ADF) detector, its signal can be simulated by the Monte Carlo method and, thus, can be used for measurements of the following parameters:

• local mass thickness of thin films and nanoparticles, molecular mass of macromolecular complexes (e.g., mass of individual particles, mass per length of filaments and mass per area of sheet-like structures).
• In case that the whole system is calibrated, i.e. the acquired image is related to the actual current of impinging electron probe and the detector characteristics are well known, the measurement can be absolute without the need of any calibration standards.