Atomic imaging of surfaces in plan view

Abstract

We report experimental results imaging the surface diffraction spots in the plan view geometry from the Si(111) surface and the Ir(001) surface. High quality images have been obtained using conventional large aperture high resolution electron microscopy (HREM), a smaller aperture to exclude the bulk diffraction spots and with highly tilted crystals. The experimental data indicates that there should be no major problems in obtaining atomic scale surface information in plan view.