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The Influence of the Sample Thickness on the Lateral and Axial Resolution of Aberration-Corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2013

Ranjan Ramachandra ,
Hendrix Demers  and
Niels de Jonge
Ranjan Ramachandra
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt UniversitySchool of Medicine, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Nashville, TN 37232-0615, USA
Hendrix Demers
Affiliation:
University of Sherbrooke, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Sherbrooke, Quebec J1K 2R1, Canada
Niels de Jonge*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt UniversitySchool of Medicine, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Nashville, TN 37232-0615, USA INM—Leibniz Institute for New Materials, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: niels.dejonge@inm-gmbh.de
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Abstract

The lateral and axial resolution of three-dimensional (3D) focal series aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy was studied for samples of different thicknesses. The samples consisted of gold nanoparticles placed on the top and at the bottom of silicon nitride membranes of thickness between 50 and 500 nm. Atomic resolution was obtained for nanoparticles on top of 50-, 100-, and 200-nm-thick membranes with respect to the electron beam traveling downward. Atomic resolution was also achieved for nanoparticles placed below 50-, 100-, and 200-nm-thick membranes but with a lower contrast at the larger thicknesses. Beam broadening led to a reduced resolution for a 500-nm-thick membrane. The influence of the beam broadening on the axial resolution was also studied using Monte Carlo simulations with a 3D sample geometry.

Keywords

scanning transmission electron microscopypoint spread function (PSF)3Dbeam broadeningaxial resolutionnanoparticles
Type
Software, Techniques and Equipment Development
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 93 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2013

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Footnotes

†

Current affiliation: Center for Research in Biological Systems, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

‡

Current affiliation: Department of Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

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