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Scanning transmission electron microscopy: Seeing the atoms more clearly

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Abstract

This article shows how the scanning transmission electron microscope provides a Z-contrast image (where Z is atomic number) that is often directly interpretable and can show higher resolution than a phase-contrast image. It represents an incoherent mode of imaging, similar to that described by Lord Rayleigh for the optical microscope over a century ago. Today, resolution has reached a half Ångstrom, and spectroscopic analysis of individual atomic columns, even of individual atoms in two-dimensional materials, has become possible.

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the US Department of Energy for its many decades of support of electron microscopy, particularly the development of STEM by Albert Crewe and colleagues, and the author’s own support for the past 30 years. I would like to acknowledge fruitful interactions with all my colleagues over the years, in particular L.M. Brown, A. Howie, D.E. Jesson, N.D. Browning, M.F. Chisholm, P.D. Nellist, A.R. Lupini, M. Varela, A.Y. Borisevich, O.L. Krivanek, M.P. Oxley, S.T. Pantelides, and J.-C. Idrobo. This article was written with support from the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.

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  1. Materials Science and Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States

    Stephen J. Pennycook

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Correspondence to Stephen J. Pennycook.

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This article is based on a presentation by Stephen J. Pennycook when he received the Innovation in Materials Characterization Award for his “pioneering use of aberration-corrected Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy in the characterization of materials at the atomic scale” at the MRS Spring Meeting in 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

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Pennycook, S.J. Scanning transmission electron microscopy: Seeing the atoms more clearly. MRS Bulletin 37, 943–951 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2012.239

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