The pattern of bend contours which appear in the TEM image of a bent or curled sample indicates the shape into which the specimen is bent. Several authors have characterized the shape of their bent foils by this method, most recently I. Bolotov, as well as G. Möllenstedt and O. Rang in the early 1950’s. However, the samples they considered were viewed at orientations away from a zone axis, or at zone axes of low symmetry, so that dynamical interactions between the bend contours did not occur. Their calculations were thus based on purely geometric arguments. In this paper bend contours are used to measure deflections of a single-crystal silicon membrane at the (111) zone axis, where there are strong dynamical effects. Features in the bend contour pattern are identified and associated with a particular angle of bending of the membrane by reference to large-angle convergent-beam electron diffraction (LACBED) patterns.
