Strain measurement in ferromagnetic crystals using dark-field electron holography

Abstract

This study proposes a method to separate the geometric phase shift due to lattice strain from the undesired phase information, resulting from magnetic fields that are superposed in the dark-field electron holography (DFEH) observations. Choosing a distinct wave vector for the Bragg reflection reversed the sense of the geometric phase shift, while the sense of the magnetic information remained unchanged. In the case of an Nd-Fe-B permanent magnet, once the unwanted signal was removed by data processing, the residual phase image revealed a strain map. Even though the applications of DFEH have thus far been limited to non-magnetic systems, the method proposed in this work is also applicable to strain measurements in various ferromagnetic systems.