High contrast hollow-cone dark field transmission electron microscopy for nanocrystalline grain size quantification

    Authors

    B. Yao; T. Sun; A. Warren; H. Heinrich; K. Barmak;K. R. Coffey

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Micron

    Keywords

    Hollow-cone dark field; Nanocrystalline; Grain size quantification; TEM; BACK-ETCH METHOD; FILMS; TEM; Microscopy

    Abstract

    In this paper, we describe hollow-cone dark field (HCDF) transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging, with a slightly convergent beam, as an improved technique that is suitable to form high contrast micrographs for nanocrystalline grain size quantification. We also examine the various factors that influence the HCDF TEM image quality, including the conditions of microscopy (alignment, focus and objective aperture size), the properties of the materials imaged (e.g., atomic number, strain, defects), and the characteristics of the TEM sample itself (e.g., thickness, ion milling artifacts). Sample preparation was found to be critical and an initial thinning by wet etching of the substrate (for thin film samples) or tripod polishing (for bulk samples), followed by low-angle ion milling was found to be the preferred approach for preparing high-quality electron transparent samples for HCDF imaging. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Micron

    Volume

    41

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2010

    Document Type

    Review

    Language

    English

    First Page

    177

    Last Page

    182

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000275344900001

    ISSN

    0968-4328

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