Publikationsrepositorium - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Off-Axis Electron Holography permits the direct reconstruction of amplitude and phase of electron waves elastically scattered by an object (see, e.g., [1]). The technique employs the Möllenstedt biprism to mutually incline an object modulated wave and a plane reference wave to form an interference pattern at the detector plane. Limited coherence of the electron beam in presence of aberrations attenuates high spatial frequencies of the object exit wave spectrum, which is illustrated by the sideband envelope function for a non-corrected TEM in Fig. 1a. In this work, we explore an extension of the conventional setup given by deliberately tilting the reference wave independent from the object wave. This allows the transfer of spatial frequencies beyond the conventional sideband information limit in Fig. 1a as predicted by a generalized transfer theory for Off-Axis Electron Holography [2]. This is because a reference wave tilted by q0 compensates the berration impact on the spatial frequency q0 of the object wave spectrum. The resulting transfer envelope for a tilt of q0x = -10/nm perpendicular to the post-specimen biprism is shown in Fig. 1b, where the contrast maximum of the total envelope (TCC) is located at q0x. Thus, an off-axis hologram series with varying reference wave tilt allows in principle a linear synthesis of an effective coherent aperture with a radius reaching out beyond the conventional information limit. Furthermore, an object-independent measurement of aberrations as well as dark-field electron holography can be realized using this setup. The experimental realization of an arbitrarily tilted reference wave is challenging and could be realized for the first time at the Hitachi HF3300C I2TEM at CEMES Toulouse for one direction [3]. We used an additional biprism placed in the illumination system. Three condenser lenses were adjusted to provide a demagnified image of the condenser biprism at the sample plane under parallel illumination (Fig. 2). The pre-specimen deflectors were adapted to maintain the incident wave vector of the object wave and to realize a tilt of the reference wave as a function of the condenser biprism voltage. Optimal condenser lens settings were found by means of paraxial ray tracing (Fig. 3) finally producing a mutual tilt of up to 20/nm at the object plane. We verified the kink-like phase modulation of the incident beam by means of holographic measurements. Contrast transfer theory including condenser aberrations and biprism instabilities was applied to explain detailed fringe contrast measurements. Finally, we have experimentally shown that dark-field holography [4] can be conducted with an object-independent reference.

[1] H Lichte et al, Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 016102
[2] F Röder et al, Ultramic. 152 (2015) 63-74
[3] F Röder et al, Ultramic. 161 (2016) 23–40
[4] MJ Hÿtch et al, Nature 453 (2008), 1086–1089

Acknowledgments
We thank the Graduate Academy of the TU Dresden for the financial support. The research leading to these
results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement
312483-ESTEEM2 (Integrated Infrastructure Initiative-I3).