Auto-ponderomotive beam guiding up to 9.5 keV

We report successful electrostatic auto-ponderomotive (APE) electron beam guiding at electron energies of up to 9.5keV. We do so with electrons derived from a scanning electron microscope and demonstrate the guiding along an S-shaped trajectory. For this S-shaped guide, we use a mirror-symmetrical double-planar electrode layout and apply static voltages only. We study details of the APE guiding process and show that we can extend its operability over almost three orders of magnitude in beam energy. In particular, we reach a range of electron energies often used in conventional scanning electron microscopes.