Backscattered electrons are higher energy electrons that are elastically backscattered by the atoms of the sample. Atoms with higher atomic numbers backscatter more efficiently and therefore this detector can give compositional information about the sample. These detectors can either be scintillators or semiconductors. An advantage of having a semiconductor detector is that it can be split into sections can be switched on or off to control the contrast and directionality, which gives valuable topographical information about the sample as well.