JoVE Logo

Sign In

Abstract

Chemistry

Picometer-Precision Atomic Position Tracking through Electron Microscopy

Published: July 3rd, 2021

DOI:

10.3791/62164

1Department of Materials Science & Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 2Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Abstract

The modern aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes (AC-STEM) have successfully achieved direct visualization of atomic columns with sub-angstrom resolution. With this significant progress, advanced image quantification and analysis are still at the early stages. In this work, we present the complete pathway for the metrology of atomic resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) images. This includes (1) tips for acquiring high-quality STEM images; (2) denoising and drift-correction for enhancing measurement accuracy; (3) obtaining initial atomic positions; (4) indexing the atoms based on unit cell vectors; (5) quantifying the atom column positions with either 2D-Gaussian single peak fitting or (6) multi-peak fitting routines for slightly overlapping atomic columns; (7) quantification of lattice distortion/strain within the crystal structures or at the defects/interfaces where the lattice periodicity is disrupted; and (8) some common methods to visualize and present the analysis.

Furthermore, a simple self-developed free MATLAB app (EASY-STEM) with a graphical user interface (GUI) will be presented. The GUI can assist in the analysis of STEM images without the need for writing dedicated analysis code or software. The advanced data analysis methods presented here can be applied for the local quantification of defect relaxations, local structural distortions, local phase transformations, and non-centrosymmetry in a wide range of materials.

Explore More Videos

Keywords Atomic Position Tracking

This article has been published

Video Coming Soon

JoVE Logo

Privacy

Terms of Use

Policies

Research

Education

ABOUT JoVE

Copyright © 2024 MyJoVE Corporation. All rights reserved