High-resolution transmission electron microscopy

High-resolution transmission electron microscopy is an imaging mode of specialized transmission electron microscopes that allows for direct imaging of the atomic structure of samples.^[1][2] It is a powerful tool to study properties of materials on the atomic scale, such as semiconductors, metals, nanoparticles and sp²-bonded carbon (e.g., graphene, C nanotubes). While this term is often also used to refer to high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy, mostly in high angle annular dark field mode, this article describes mainly the imaging of an object by recording the two-dimensional spatial wave amplitude distribution in the image plane, similar to a "classic" light microscope. For disambiguation, the technique is also often referred to as phase contrast transmission electron microscopy, although this term is less appropriate. At present, the highest point resolution realised in high resolution transmission electron microscopy is around 0.5 ångströms (0.050 nm).^[3] At these small scales, individual atoms of a crystal and defects can be resolved. For 3-dimensional crystals, it is necessary to combine several views, taken from different angles, into a 3D map. This technique is called electron tomography.

One of the difficulties with high resolution transmission electron microscopy is that image formation relies on phase contrast. In phase-contrast imaging, contrast is not intuitively interpretable, as the image is influenced by aberrations of the imaging lenses in the microscope. The largest contributions for uncorrected instruments typically come from defocus and astigmatism. The latter can be estimated from the so-called Thon ring pattern appearing in the Fourier transform modulus of an image of a thin amorphous film.