An Einstein model for thermal diffuse scattering (TDS) has enabled quantitative calculation of the absorptive potential V'(r). This allows anomalous absorption to be accounted for in LACBED contrast. Fourier coefficients Vg-h of the absorptive component from each atom α are calculated from integrals of the formwhere fα is the scattering amplitude and M(Q) the Debye-Waller factor. Integration over the Ewald sphere (dΩ) requires the momentum transfer q to have values up to 2ko (the incident beam momentum). Dynamical ‘dechannelling’ is accounted for by the terms g ≠ h. The crystal absorptive potential is obtained by coherently summing over these atomic absorptive potentials within the unit cell. Unlike the elastic potential, the absorptive potential is a strong function of incident beam energy Eo, since the range of momentum transfer q and associated solid angles dΩ change with the Ewald sphere radius.Fig. 1 shows a LACBED pattern of the zeroth order beam from Si aligned along a <001> zone axis.