Electron Holography and the Correction of Spherical Aberration

Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe ◽  
J. Saxon

Division of wavefront electron holograms have been recorded using a field emission source and electrostatic biprism to get an off axis reference beam. A schematic diagram of the apparatus used is shown in Fig. 1. The electron beam is focused to a point above the specimen and biprism fiber by a specially designed electron gun. With positive potential applied to the fiber the Fresnel diffraction pattern of the specimen is superimposed on the interference pattern of the two effective sources forming the hologram. Two standard magnetic projector lenses are used to magnify the hologram which is recorded outside the vacuum system directly on film in contact with a phosphor-coated fiber optic faceplate. A He-Ne laser is used for the reconstruction as shown in Fig. 2. Following Meier's analysis it is found that when a parallel beam is used to reconstruct the wavefront, the real image will be in focus a distancein front of the hologram where m is the total magnification of the hologram and μ is the ratio of the illuminating to recording wavelengths.

Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe ◽  
J. Saxon

Field emission from a tungsten tip provides a source with very high brightness and high partial coherence. An electron gun of low spherical aberration is used to focus the electrons from the tip to a small spot about 100 Å in diameter. Since the voltages applied to the tip and gun are stable to better than 5 ppm, the temporal coherence is limited by the energy spread of the source, about 200 mv.Using the focused spot a few centimeters below the gun as an effective source, a metalized quartz fiber about 2 μ in diameter is positioned a few centimeters below the source, as shown in Fig. 1. Two cylindrica11y symmetric magnetic lenses are used to magnify the resulting Fresnel diffraction pattern. The image is produced on a fluorescent coating deposited on the vacuum side of a fiber optic window. The image is recorded directly on film placed against the window outside the vacuum system.


Author(s):  
Richard L. McConville

A second generation twin lens has been developed. This symmetrical lens with a wider bore, yet superior values of chromatic and spherical aberration for a given focal length, retains both eucentric ± 60° tilt movement and 20°x ray detector take-off angle at 90° to the tilt axis. Adjust able tilt axis height, as well as specimen height, now ensures almost invariant objective lens strengths for both TEM (parallel beam conditions) and STEM or nano probe (focused small probe) modes.These modes are selected through use of an auxiliary lens situ ated above the objective. When this lens is on the specimen is illuminated with a parallel beam of electrons, and when it is off the specimen is illuminated with a focused probe of dimensions governed by the excitation of the condenser 1 lens. Thus TEM/STEM operation is controlled by a lens which is independent of the objective lens field strength.


Author(s):  
Zhifeng Shao

Recently, low voltage (≤5kV) scanning electron microscopes have become popular because of their unprecedented advantages, such as minimized charging effects and smaller specimen damage, etc. Perhaps the most important advantage of LVSEM is that they may be able to provide ultrahigh resolution since the interaction volume decreases when electron energy is reduced. It is obvious that no matter how low the operating voltage is, the resolution is always poorer than the probe radius. To achieve 10Å resolution at 5kV (including non-local effects), we would require a probe radius of 5∽6 Å. At low voltages, we can no longer ignore the effects of chromatic aberration because of the increased ratio δV/V. The 3rd order spherical aberration is another major limiting factor. The optimized aperture should be calculated as


Author(s):  
A. V. Crewe ◽  
M. W. Retsky

A 100 kv scanning transmission microscope has been built. Briefly, the design is as follows: The electron gun consists of a field emission point and a 3 cm Butler gun. The beam has a crossover outside the gun and is collimated by a condenser lens.The parallel beam passes through a defining aperture and is focused by the objective lens onto the specimen. The elastic electrons are detected by two annular detectors, each subtending a different angle, and the unscattered and inelastic electrons are collected by a third detector. The spectrometer that will separate the inelastic and unscattered electrons has not yet been built.The lens current supplies are stable to within one part per million per hour and have been described elsewhere.The high voltage is also stable to 1 ppm/hr. It consists of the raw supply from a 100 kv Spellman power supply controlled by an external reference voltage, high voltage divider, and error amplifier.


Author(s):  
Peter Rez

In high resolution microscopy the image amplitude is given by the convolution of the specimen exit surface wave function and the microscope objective lens transfer function. This is usually done by multiplying the wave function and the transfer function in reciprocal space and integrating over the effective aperture. For very thin specimens the scattering can be represented by a weak phase object and the amplitude observed in the image plane is1where fe (Θ) is the electron scattering factor, r is a postition variable, Θ a scattering angle and x(Θ) the lens transfer function. x(Θ) is given by2where Cs is the objective lens spherical aberration coefficient, the wavelength, and f the defocus.We shall consider one dimensional scattering that might arise from a cross sectional specimen containing disordered planes of a heavy element stacked in a regular sequence among planes of lighter elements. In a direction parallel to the disordered planes there will be a continuous distribution of scattering angle.


Author(s):  
Hannes Lichte

Generally, the electron object wave o(r) is modulated both in amplitude and phase. In the image plane of an ideal imaging system we would expect to find an image wave b(r) that is modulated in exactly the same way, i. e. b(r) =o(r). If, however, there are aberrations, the image wave instead reads as b(r) =o(r) * FT(WTF) i. e. the convolution of the object wave with the Fourier transform of the wave transfer function WTF . Taking into account chromatic aberration, illumination divergence and the wave aberration of the objective lens, one finds WTF(R) = Echrom(R)Ediv(R).exp(iX(R)) . The envelope functions Echrom(R) and Ediv(R) damp the image wave, whereas the effect of the wave aberration X(R) is to disorder amplitude and phase according to real and imaginary part of exp(iX(R)) , as is schematically sketched in fig. 1.Since in ordinary electron microscopy only the amplitude of the image wave can be recorded by the intensity of the image, the wave aberration has to be chosen such that the object component of interest (phase or amplitude) is directed into the image amplitude. Using an aberration free objective lens, for X=0 one sees the object amplitude, for X= π/2 (“Zernike phase contrast”) the object phase. For a real objective lens, however, the wave aberration is given by X(R) = 2π (.25 Csλ3R4 + 0.5ΔzλR2), Cs meaning the coefficient of spherical aberration and Δz defocusing. Consequently, the transfer functions sin X(R) and cos(X(R)) strongly depend on R such that amplitude and phase of the image wave represent only fragments of the object which, fortunately, supplement each other. However, recording only the amplitude gives rise to the fundamental problems, restricting resolution and interpretability of ordinary electron images:


Author(s):  
Sutriyono ◽  
Widodo ◽  
Retno Suryandari

Microscope is one of the tools used in practicums with high intensity. The use of a microscope adjusts to the object to be observed in order to obtain optimal micrographic results. Stereo microscopes are used to observe three-dimensional objects. Upright microscopes are used to observe two-dimensional objects. This study aims to combine the two advantages of stereo microscopy that can produce three-dimensional micrography with the advantages of an upright microscope that has a high total magnification. The method used in this study is an experimental method by adding an optical fiber illuminator in the use of an upright microscope and then applying it in various observations. The conclusion of this research is the addition of an optical fiber illuminator in observations using an upright microscope can replace the function of a stereo microscope; can produce three-dimensional effects and increase magnification in Daphnia magna micrographic observations.


2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 40-43
Author(s):  
Ted Clarke

The stereomicroscope was the main tool I once used for metallurgical failure analysis. I have owned a Meiji EMT Greenough-type stereomicroscope since the late 1980's. I had not used transmitted light with the stereomicroscope until about a year ago when I completed a multimode transmitted light illuminator for my Meiji stereomicroscope. I thought this capability would be very useful for introducing the grandkids to the microscopic world, especially with live lake water organisms. My earlier article in Microscopy Today, “Rediscovery of Darkfield Dispersion Staining while Building a Universal Student Microscope,” January/February 2003, demonstrated usefulness of a dual brightfield and darkfield capability in transmitted light for viewing living organisms. I have a ½″ fiber-optic bundle light guide used in the illumination system for my modified Biolam microscope also shown in Microscopy Today, “Effects of Condenser Spherical Aberration on Image Quality,” March 2005.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 3089-3100 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Janhunen

Abstract. An electric solar wind sail is a recently introduced propellantless space propulsion method whose technical development has also started. The electric sail consists of a set of long, thin, centrifugally stretched and conducting tethers which are charged positively and kept in a high positive potential of order 20 kV by an onboard electron gun. The positively charged tethers deflect solar wind protons, thus tapping momentum from the solar wind stream and producing thrust. The amount of obtained propulsive thrust depends on how many electrons are trapped by the potential structures of the tethers, because the trapped electrons tend to shield the charged tether and reduce its effect on the solar wind. Here we present physical arguments and test particle calculations indicating that in a realistic three-dimensional electric sail spacecraft there exist a natural mechanism which tends to remove the trapped electrons by chaotising their orbits and causing them to eventually collide with the conducting tethers. We present calculations which indicate that if these mechanisms were able to remove trapped electrons nearly completely, the electric sail performance could be about five times higher than previously estimated, about 500 nN/m, corresponding to 1 N thrust for a baseline construction with 2000 km total tether length.


2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Smith

The successful correction of spherical aberration is an exciting and revolutionary development for the whole field of electron microscopy. Image interpretability can be extended out to sub-Ångstrom levels, thereby creating many novel opportunities for materials characterization. Correction of lens aberrations involves either direct (online) hardware attachments in fixed-beam or scanning TEM or indirect (off-line) software processing using either off-axis electron holography or focal-series reconstruction. This review traces some of the important steps along the path to realizing aberration correction, including early attempts with hardware correctors, the development of online microscope control, and methods for accurate measurement of aberrations. Recent developments and some initial applications of aberration-corrected electron microscopy using these different approaches are surveyed. Finally, future prospects and problems are briefly discussed.


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