Principle & practice of transmission electron diffraction.

Tran Ngoc Cuong Physics department., Dongguk University, KOREA Date: 2011/12/03

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Principal operation
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique whereby a beam of electrons is transmitted through an ultra thin specimen, interacting with the specimen as it passes through. An image is formed from the interaction of the electrons transmitted through the specimen; the image is magnified and focused onto an imaging device, such as a fluorescent screen, on a layer of photographic film, or to be detected by a sensor such as a CCD camera.

The operating modes: Transmission electron microscopy Scanning electron microscopy Scanning TEM Physics department

Components of the TEM

Electron gun: connecting this to a high voltage source (typically ~100-300 kV). Aperture: mechanical devices which allow for the selection of different aperture sizes. Specimen port: high vacuum, TEM grid sizes is a 3.05 mm diameter ring. Objective lens focuses on the specimen. Projector lens: transfers the diffraction pattern onto the viewing screen. optical components in a basic TEM Physics department

Three basic operating modes of an electron microscope

(a) bright-field image (b) dark-field image (c) phase contrast, high-resolution image Three types of TEM contrast for a specimen including a crystalline region (left half) and an amorphous region(right half). Three microstructural characterization techniques known as Selected Area Electron Diffraction (SAED), Conventional Transmission Electron Microscopy (CTEM) and High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (HRTEM). Physics department

Take selected-area diffraction pattern

Alter strength of intermediate lens and focus diffraction pattern on to screen By tilting a crystalline sample to low-index zone axes, SAED patterns can be used to identify crystal structures and measure lattice parameters. (a) Image formation (a) For selected are diffraction Physics department

Convergent-beam electron diffraction

Basic principle

Convergent beam electron diffraction, generally referred to as CBED, is one of the most powerful techniques for the determination of crystal structure in the field of transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The geometry of electron diffraction is different in these two modes, namely SAED and CBED

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Convergent-beam electron diffraction

Instead of parallel illumination with selected-area aperture, CBED uses highly converged illumination to select a much smaller specimen region

(a) SAED

(a) CBED

Diffraction spots of the SAED are enlarged into CBED discs.

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Comparing SAED and CBED

SAED consists of a set of spots

CBED consists of a set of discs Physics department

Effect of Convergence Angle

The electrons are scattered though 2 B. Electrons are scattered from all the directions in the convergent conical illumination. Each point in the direct beam disc is one direction of illumination so each point in the disc can be scattered by the same 2 B.

Each spot

becomes a disc

which variations in intensity, they contain a wealth of Physics department

information about the symmetry and thickness of the crystal and are widely used in TEM

Advanced CBED
Patterns from dynamical scattering in direct and diffraction discs allow determination of: - Polarity of non-centrosymmetric crystals - Sample thickness

simulated and experimental CBED patterns for GaN and ZnO

g = hkl means that the (hkl) reflection satisfies its Bragg condition Physics department

Advanced CBED
Inelastic scattering which can go in any direction Elastic scattering which can go only in specific directions.

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