Restoring defect structures in 3C-SiC/Si (0 0 1) from spherical aberration-corrected high-resolution transmission electron microscope images by means of deconvolution processing

Abstract

The [110] cross-sectional samples of 3C-SiC/Si (001) were observed with a spherical aberration-corrected 300kV high-resolution transmission electron microscope. Two images taken not close to the Scherzer focus condition and not representing the projected structures intuitively were utilized for performing the deconvolution. The principle and procedure of image deconvolution and atomic sort recognition are summarized. The defect structure restoration together with the recognition of Si and C atoms from the experimental images has been illustrated. The structure maps of an intrinsic stacking fault in the area of SiC, and of Lomer and 60° shuffle dislocations at the interface have been obtained at atomic level.