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Development of Aberration-Corrected Electron Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2008

David J. Smith
David J. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1504, USA Dedicated to the memory of the late John C. Wheatley
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Abstract

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.

Keywords

aberration correctionoff-axis electron holographyfocal-series reconstruction
Type
REVIEW
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 14 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Materials Research in an Aberration-Free Environment , February 2008 , pp. 2 - 15
Copyright
© 2008 Microscopy Society of America

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References

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