Electron Microscopy of inorganic materials

Abstract

Over the past two decades tremendous progress has been made in the use of advanced transmission electron microscopy techniques to solve complex materials problems. This is especially true in the case of inorganic materials, such as multicomponent metal oxides. The inherent complexity of the crystal structure and microstructure of these ceramic materials as well as the interdependence of the final properties on microstructure and processing mean that detailed characterization of the effect of processing variables on the structure and microstructure is imperative. Electron microscopy has become firmly established as a powerful tool to explore the structure and microstructure of these materials. Due to the various types of interactions of electrons with materials, the electron microscope is unique in that it can provide morphological, structural, compositional and in the case of materials such as ferroelectrics information on the domain and domain wall configurations. This is illustrated and summarized in Fig. 1. In this review, some typical examples of the applications of advanced transmission electron microscopy techniques to solving problems in ferroelectric materials will be discussed.