Chapter 5 Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy: Mapping Materials Atom by Atom

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the mapping materials atom by atom by scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. Many current technologies are advancing by engineering materials at the atomic scale, whether in interfaces in semiconductors or grain boundary segregants in structural alloys. Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) provides a technique uniquely able to characterize the important few atomic columns (and even single atoms in favorable situations) in buried structures. Materials science research can be divided into three components: synthesis, characterization, and modeling. Aberration-corrected STEM is capable of interacting with both growers and theorists in a remarkably productive triumvirate. For beam-sensitive materials, opportunities remain in the optimal extraction of information from the unavoidable dose. Incentives for instrumentation development lie in the directions of in situ experiments, in lower accelerating voltages, and in detectors.