Energy-filtered high-resolution electron microscopy for quantitative solid state structure determination

Abstract

Energy-filtered (or selected) electron imaging is one of the future directions of high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM). In this paper, the characteristics and applications of energy-selected electron imaging at high-resolution for structure determinations are illustrated. It is shown that image contrast can be dramatically improved with the use of an energy filter. High-resolution chemical-sensitive imaging using ionization-loss electrons is demonstrated in studies of Ni/Ti and Al/Ti multilayer thin films. It is also shown that the spatial resolution of energy-selected ionizalion edge electron images is dominated by the signal-to-noise ratio. Experimental parameters which may be selected to improve the signal-to-noise ratio are discussed.