Electron counting detectors in scanning transmission electron microscopy via hardware signal processing

Journal article

In the scanning transmission electron microscope, both phase imaging of beam-sensitive materials and characterisation of a material\u27s functional properties using in-situ experiments are becoming more widely available. As the practicable scan speed of 4D-STEM detectors improves, so too does the temporal resolution achievable for both differential phase contrast (DPC) and ptychography. However, the read-out burden of pixelated detectors, and the size of the gigabyte to terabyte sized data sets, remain a challenge for both temporal resolution and their practical adoption. In this work, we show that a high-fidelity DPC phase reconstruction can be achieved from both annular segmented detectors or pixelated arrays with relatively few elements using signal digitisation. Unlike conventional analog data, even at the fastest scan speeds, phase reconstructions from digitised DPC-segment images yield reliable data. Finally, dose fractionation by fast scanning and multi-framing allows for post-process binning of frame streams to balance signal-to-noise ratio and temporal resolution for low-dose phase imaging for in-situ experiments.21 pages, 6 figures + 6 supplementary figures, 1 supplementary table. This revised version includes minor fixes and clarification

Authors: Peters, JJP; Mullarkey, T; Hedley, E; Müller, KH; Porter, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Journal: Nature Communications
• Volume: 14
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 5184-5184
• Article number: 5184
• Publication date: 2023-08-25
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-40875-w
• EISSN: 2041-1723
• ISSN: 2041-1723
• Language: English
• Keywords: Conventional transmission electron microscope; Transmission (telecommunications); Physics; Computer hardware; Transmission electron microscopy; Scanning confocal electron microscopy; Electron microscope; Optics; Microscopy; Electron tomography; Materials science; Range (aeronautics); Electron; Scanning electron microscope; SIGNAL (programming language); Energy filtered transmission electron microscopy; Nuclear physics; Telecommunications; Computer science; Detector; Scanning transmission electron microscopy