When acquiring energy-filtered TEM (EFTEM) images of a crystalline material, the detrimental effects of diffraction contrast can often be seen in raw energy-filtered images (EFI) (i.e., pre-edge and post-edge images), jump-ratio images and elemental maps as residual diffraction contrast. Residual diffraction contrast occurs in raw EFI because of plural scattering (i.e., inelastic-elastic and elastic-inelastic electron scattering) and in jump-ratio images and elemental maps because background removal procedures often are unable to completely account for intensity changes due to dynamical effects (elastic scattering) that occur between pre-edge and post-edge images acquired at different energy losses.It is demonstrated in these experiments that, when examining a planar interface, EFTEM images have increased compositional contrast and decreased residual diffraction contrast when the sample is oriented so that the interface is parallel to the electron beam, but not directly on a zone axis.
