The Use of Phase and Amplitude Information of Reconstructed Exit Waves

Abstract

Exit waves can be reconstructed from through focus series of HREM images or by off-axis holography [1]. We have applied the through focus method to reconstruct exit waves, using algorithms developed by Van Dyck and Coene [2]. Electron microscopy was performed with a Philips CM30ST electron microscope with a field emission gun operated at 300 kV. The high resolution images were recorded using a Tietz software package and a 1024x1024 pixel Photometrix CCD camera having a dynamic range of 12 bits. The reconstructions were done using 15-20 images with focus increments of 5.2 nm. The resulting exit waves were corrected posteriorly for the three fold astigmatism.The exit wave is complex; consequently it contains phase and amplitude. Since in the very thin regions the specimen acts as a thin phase object, such a thin area will show little contrast, an example of which is shown in Figure 1.