Detection of Single Atoms and Buried Defects in Three Dimensions by Aberration-corrected Electron Microscope with 0.5 ? Information Limit

• Published in: Microscopy and microanalysis Vol. 14; no. 5
• Main Authors: Kisielowski, Christian, Bischoff, Maarten, van Lin, Hans, Lazar, Sorin, Freitag, Bernhard, Knippels, Georg, Tiemeijer, Peter, van der Stam, Maarten, von Harrach, Sebastian, Stekelenburg, Michael, Haider, Maximilian, M ller, Hans, Hartel, Peter, Kabius, Bernd, Miller, Dean, Petrov, Ivan, Olson, Eric, Donchev, Tomas, Kenik, Edward A, Lupini, Andrew R, Bentley, James, Pennycook, Stephen J, Minor, Andrew, Schmid, Andreas, Duden, Thomas, Radmilovic, Velimir, Ramasse, Quentin, Watanabe, Masashi, Stach, Eric, Denes, Peter, Dahmen, Ulrich
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.01.2008
• Subjects: aberration-correction; ATOMS; CHROMATIC ABERRATIONS; CORRECTIONS; DEFECTS; DETECTION; ELECTRON MICROSCOPY; GOLD; INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY; NANOSTRUCTURES; scanning transmission electron microscopy; SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO; SPATIAL RESOLUTION; Transmission electron microscopy
• ISSN: 1431-9276; 1435-8115
• DOI: 10.1017/S1431927608080902

The ability of electron microscopes to analyze all the atoms in individual nanostructures is limited by lens aberrations. However, recent advances in aberration-correcting electron optics have led to greatly enhanced instrument performance and new techniques of electron microscopy. The development of an ultrastable electron microscope with aberration-correcting optics and a monochromated high-brightness source has significantly improved instrument resolution and contrast. In the present work, we report information transfer beyond 50 pm and show images of single gold atoms with a signal-to-noise ratio as large as 10. The instrument's new capabilities were exploited to detect a buried Σ3 {112} grain boundary and observe the dynamic arrangements of single atoms and atom pairs with sub- ngstrom resolution. These results mark an important step toward meeting the challenge of determining the 3D atomic-scale structure of nanomaterials.