Materials characterisation by angle-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy

Materials characterisation by angle-resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy

Solid-state properties such as strain or chemical composition often leave characteristic fingerprints in the angular dependence of electron scattering. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is dedicated to probe scattered intensity with atomic resolution, but it drastically lacks angular resolution. Here we report both a setup to exploit the explicit angular dependence of scattered i...

15. Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

Characterization of Guinier-Preston Zones by High-Angle Annular Detector Dark-Field Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

Age-hardened alloys are everywhere: in aeroplanes, aluminum sashes, electrical connections for computer devices, and so on. The materials that have made possible the very existence of these human inventions are manufactured based on a single materials-science principle known as ageing. Here, supersaturated impurity atoms that dissolved in an otherwise pure metal gather around inside the metal a...

Scanning electron microscopy for materials characterization

Current materials are usually complex in chemistry, three-dimensional in form, and of rapidly diminishing microstructural scale. To characterize such materials the scanning electron microscope (SEM) now uses a wide range of operating conditions to target the desired sample volume, sophisticated modeling techniques to interpret the data. It also uses novel imaging modes to derive new types of in...

Scanning transmission low-energy electron microscopy

We discuss an extension to the transmission mode of the cathode-lens-equipped scanning electron microscope, enabling operation down to the lowest energies of electrons. Penetration of electrons through free-standing ultrathin films is examined along the full energy scale, and the contribution of the secondary electrons (SEs), released near the bottom surface of the sample, is shown, enhancing t...