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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2008

C. Kisielowski ,
B. Freitag ,
M. Bischoff ,
H. van Lin ,
S. Lazar ,
G. Knippels ,
P. Tiemeijer ,
M. van der Stam ,
S. von Harrach  and
M. Stekelenburg
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C. Kisielowski
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
B. Freitag
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
M. Bischoff
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
H. van Lin
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
S. Lazar
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
G. Knippels
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
P. Tiemeijer
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
M. van der Stam
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
S. von Harrach
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
M. Stekelenburg
Affiliation:
FEI Company, Eindhoven, Building AAE, Achtseweg Noord 5, P.O. Box 80066, 5600 KA Eindhoven, The Netherlands
M. Haider
Affiliation:
CEOS GmbH, Englerstr. 28, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany
S. Uhlemann
Affiliation:
CEOS GmbH, Englerstr. 28, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany
H. Müller
Affiliation:
CEOS GmbH, Englerstr. 28, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany
P. Hartel
Affiliation:
CEOS GmbH, Englerstr. 28, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany
B. Kabius
Affiliation:
Argonne National Laboratory, Electron Microscopy Center, Argonne, IL 10329, USA
D. Miller
Affiliation:
Argonne National Laboratory, Electron Microscopy Center, Argonne, IL 10329, USA
I. Petrov
Affiliation:
Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois, 104 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
E.A. Olson
Affiliation:
Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois, 104 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
T. Donchev
Affiliation:
Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois, 104 S. Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
E.A. Kenik
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
A.R. Lupini
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
J. Bentley
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
S.J. Pennycook
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
I.M. Anderson
Affiliation:
Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
A.M. Minor
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
A.K. Schmid
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
T. Duden
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
V. Radmilovic
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Q.M. Ramasse
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
M. Watanabe
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
R. Erni
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
E.A. Stach
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
P. Denes
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
U. Dahmen*
Affiliation:
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Rd., Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
*
Corresponding Author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

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-angstrom resolution. These results mark an important step toward meeting the challenge of determining the three-dimensional atomic-scale structure of nanomaterials.

Keywords

aberration-correcting opticssub-angstromTEM/STEMatomic structureburied defect
Type
Materials Applications
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 14 , Issue 5 , October 2008 , pp. 469 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2008

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References

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