On the applicability of bloch’s theorem to the total wave function in the dynamical theory of electron diffraction

Abstract

The dynamical theory of electron diffraction is widely used in materials science problems such as determining the contrast in electron microscope images of crystal defects, calculations of structure images and calculations of diffracted beam intensities in electron diffraction patterns. In carrying out these calculations, the high energy approximation is normally made and it is usually assumed that the crystal is in a symmetrical Laue orientation. In practice, however, a specimen in the electron microscope will generally be oriented so that the non-symmetrical Laue case is obtained. Even in those special cases where the symmetrical Laue case is obtained for the zero order Laue zone reflections, non-symmetrical Laue effects may occur if reflections in higher order zones are important. It has been shown in the literature that the Bloch functions are not orthogonal in more general forms of the dynamical theory in which the high energy approximation is not made and the nonsymmetrical Laue case is considered,.