Electron ptychography achieves atomic-resolution limits set by lattice vibrations

Abstract

Transmission electron microscopes use electrons with wavelengths of a few picometers, potentially capable of imaging individual atoms in solids at a resolution ultimately set by the intrinsic size of an atom. Unfortunately, due to imperfections in the imaging lenses and multiple scattering of electrons in the sample, the image resolution reached is 3 to 10 times worse. Here, by inversely solving the multiple scattering problem and overcoming the aberrations of the electron probe using electron ptychography to recover a linear phase response in thick samples, we demonstrate an instrumental blurring of under 20 picometers. The widths of atomic columns in the measured electrostatic potential are now no longer limited by the imaging system, but instead by the thermal fluctuations of the atoms. We also demonstrate that electron ptychography can potentially reach a sub-nanometer depth resolution and locate embedded atomic dopants in all three dimensions with only a single projection measurement.

13 pages and 4 figures in the main text. Supplementary materials included

References in corpus (4)

• High Dynamic Range Pixel Array Detector for Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy
• Electron ptychography achieves atomic-resolution limits set by lattice vibrations
• Overcoming information reduced data and experimentally uncertain parameters in ptychography with regularized optimization
• Structure retrieval at atomic resolution in the presence of multiple scattering of the electron probe

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