Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope

Outline

• History• Interactions of Electrons• Background• STEM• Components• Specimen Preparation• Mode • Image formation• Comparison

Cont…

• The first STEM was built in 1938 by Baron Manfred von Ardenne.(distroyed in air raid)

• Not developed further until the 1970.• Then Albert Crewe at the University

of Chicago developed the field emission gun.

• Then built a STEM able to visualize single heavy atoms on thin carbon substrates

Interactions of electrons

Ramiz Ahmad

Back ground

• Maximum resolution, d

• STEM an electron’s velocity approaches the speed of light, c

STEM

• The basic principle of image formation fundamentally different from static beam TEM

• small spot size is formed on the sample surface with the condenser lenses

• This probe is scanned on the sample surface

• the signal is detected by an electron detector, amplified and synchronously displayed on CRT with the scan coils

Cont…

• DETECTOR1. Small disk on the column axis

which detects the transmitted beam (BF STEM image) or diffracted beam (DF STEM image)

2. Annular detector (a plate with a hole) which detects all the diffracted beams except the transmitted one (ADF STEM)

• Resolution limited by the spot sizehave poorer resolution but better

contrast

Naveed Abbas

Scattered beam electrons

• In STEM signal is detected by I. back scattered electrons(BSE)II. Transmitted beam electrons scattered at

some angles• In both cases, BSE and TBE, the signal

intensity is a function of the average atomic number of the sample volume and also phase contrast that interacted with the beam

• Thus providing atomic number and phase contrast

Cont…

• In STEM, the electron beam is rastered (scan coil) across the surface of a sample in a similar manner to SEM, however, the sample is a thin TEM section and the diffraction contrast image is collected on a solid-state (ADF) detector.HAADF-high angle

annular dark-field

TEM =

STEM

Imran Doger

Components

• Source formation- Field emission• Electromagnetic Lenses - Condenser lens• Aperture• Specimen stage-1. Single-tilt 2. Double-tilt• Vacuum system• Scanning coils• Detectors-1. BF 2.ADF 3.HAADF

Source formation

• The STEM consists of an emission source tungsten filament, or a lanthanum hexaboride

• High voltage source (typically 100-300kV)

• Electrons emit by field emission.

Vacuum system

• STEM is evacuated to low pressure 10^ -4 Pa• It consists of multiple pumping systems and

air locks.• Low or roughing vacuum is achieved with

either rotary vacuum pump or diaphram pumps

• For low vacuum turbomolecular pumps are connected to the chamber

• Gate valve: for different vacuum levels in specific areas(10^-4 to 10^-7 Pa)

V1 V2

Field emission

Electromagnetic Lenses

Aperture Specimen stage

mesh

Specimen holder

Sami-Ullah

Specimen Preparation

• Preparation done in two steps• Pre-Thinning: Reducing the thickness to about 0.1mm• Final Thinning: Reducing the thickness to about 100nminvolveIon MillingElectrolytic ThinningUltramicrotomy

Ion Milling

• Uses a beam of energetic ions to bombard specimen surfaces to reduce the thickness by knocking atoms out of a specimen

• General procedurea) Dimple grindingb) ion milling ion beam of 1–10 keV

bombarded specimen is placed in the

center at an angle of 5-30◦

Electrolytic Thinning

• Reducing specimen thickness to 100nm

• General procedureA specimen placed in

an electrochemical cell as anode

A suitable reduce specimen thickness

Common technique is jet polishing

Electrolytic thinning completed in 3–15 minutes.

Ione milling

Electrolytic thinning

Ultramicrotomy

M Junaid Anjum

Modes

• Transmitted electrons that leave the sample at relatively low angles with respect to the optic axis(bright field (BF).)

• Transmitted electrons that leave the sample at relatively high angles with respect to the optic axis(annular dark field (ADF).)

• High Angle ADF (HAADF) collects the highly scattered Z-contrast beam

Image formation

• BF-STEM images are equivalent to TEM (reciprocity principle).

• Produced Bragg disks hitting the detector

• Give the bright field or phase signal

Image formation

Bright field STEM image of Au particles on a carbon film

ADF images

• Electrons which have scattered to high angles are collected

• Images contain Bragg diffraction

HAADF images

• Two (out of several more) ways to simulate HAADF-STEM images are

• Incoherent Imaging Model:The Image is the convolution of object

potential and probe intensity.Iimage (r )= Iprob (r ) V2proj (r )

• Multiple Scattering Image Simulation:the frozen phonon approximation.

HAADF better Z-contrast than BF

• HAADF is much less sensitive to local diffraction conditions than BF.

• Its sensitivity mainly to the atomic number

Bright and dark field STEM image of Au particles on a carbon film

Why use STEM?•For DF imaging the annular detector collects more electrons than

an aperture.

•STEM ADF images are less noisy then TEM DF images as no lenses

are used to form them.

•Contrast in STEM images is greater than standard DF images.a) b) c)

• Comparison of TEM DF and STEM ADF images of the same

sample shows clear contrast difference

THANK YOU