Electron beam alignment

Determinations of projected atom positions are much more difficult for atoms in the Interior of the particle if the atoms are not conveniently aligned in straight rows in the direction of the incident electron beam. For the immediate future only the most favorable cases will be studied but with the application of anticipated Improvements of resolution to the l.sX level or better and the means for more accurate and automated measurement of the necessary Instrumental parameters, the detailed study of configurations of atoms in small particles should become generally feasible. 

The irradiating X-ray beam cannot be focussed upon and scanned across the specimen surface as is possible with an electron beam. Practical methods of small-spot XPS imaging rely on restriction of the source size or the analysed area. By using a focussing crystal monochromator for the X-rays, beam sizes of less than 10 pm may be achieved. This must in turn correspond with the acceptance area and alignment on the sample of the electron spectrometer, which involves the use of an electron lens of low aberration. The practically achievable spatial resolution is rarely better than 100 pm. A spatial resolution value of 200 pm might be regarded as typical, and it must also be remembered that areas of up to several millimetres in diameter can readily be analysed. 

Figure 11.11. Integration of nanowire photonics with silicon electronics. Schematic illustrating fabrication of hybrid structures. A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate is patterned by standard electron-beam or photolithography followed by reactive ion etching. Emissive NWs are then aligned onto the patterned SOI substrate to form photonic sources. [Reprinted with permission from Ref. 59. Copyright 2005 Wiley-VCH Verlag.]...

Chaudhary S, Kim JH, Ozkan M (2006). Controlled electron-beam-induced large-scale alignment of carbon nanotubes at metal electrodes. J. Nanoelectron. Optoelection. 1 211-214. 

The 3D reconstruction of an object is performed more conveniently in reciprocal (Fourier) space. The 2D Fourier transform of a projection of an object is identical to a plane of 3D Fourier transform of the original object normal to the projection direction (electron beam). The origin of each 2D Fourier transform of a projection is identical to the origin of the 3D Fourier transform of an object, provided that the projections are aligned so that they have the same (common) phase origin. This is known as the Fourier slice theorem or the central projection theorem. 

A small spot size for electron diffraction is used for three reasons i) to have a relatively small variation of thickness since most crystals are wedge shaped, ii) to reduce the amount of unwanted information like that of the matrix around a small precipitate and iii) to have a little variation in the crystal orientation. The latter reason is quite important which one can appreciate by moving the electron beam in nanodiffiaction mode over the specimen although the crystal is well aligned according to the selected area diffraction, fluctuations in orientation over 1 to 2° in all directions occur, even for areas which are very close to each other (10-50 nm). Such orientation variations should be considered as normal rather than an exception. 

The crystals of akaganeite are not microporous. Micropores observed by TEM are considered to be due to irradiation in the electron beam (Galbrait et al., 1979 Naono et al., 1982). Open ended, cylindrical, interparticular micropores have been reported these arose as a result of alignment of the rod-like crystals into parallel arrays (Paterson and Tait, 1977). Akaganeite does possess a potential structural microporosity arising from the presence of 0.21-0.24 nm across tunnels in the structure. At room... 

Fig. 116a). Interestingly, almost all crystals were aligned in their edge directions. Electron diffraction of a 2-nm-diameter area (Fig. 116) showed diffraction spots corresponding to the 220, 422, and 440 planes, indicating that all crystals line up and have their (111) planes perpendicular to the electron beam. 

In the simulations presented here, we assume that a pump laser excites the molecule to either the vibrationless, or specific vibrational levels of the Si electronic state. The diffraction pattern is measured by scattering the electron beam off the excited molecules on a time scale shorter than the rotational motion of the molecules, i.e. on a time scale less than about 10 ps. The diffraction pattern is measured in the plane perpendicular to the electron beam. The diffraction patterns shown here are for an excitation laser polarization parallel to the detector plane, and perpendicular to the electron beam. Since the electronic transition dipole moment of s-tetrazine is perpendicular to the aromatic ring, this pump-pulse polarization selects preferentially those molecules that are aligned with the aromatic plane parallel to the electron beam. 

More complex electron microscopes use additional lenses, both above and below the specimen. The condenser lenses above the specimen concentrate the electron beam and increase the illumination. The addition of intermediate lenses below (he specimen make it possible to go to higher magnification in the final image. Various alignment controls, apertures for the lenses, specimen handling devices, and suitable airlocks and anticontamination traps also are provided. 

Figure 2.2 A simple fabrication process of active electrokinetically driven micromixers, (a) BOE etching, (b) electron beam evaporation of gold/chromium, (c) gold/chromium etching, (d) cover drilling, and (e) alignment and bonding [62].

Specimens that contain materials with very different ion-milling rates, such as metallic multilayers grown on silicon substrates, often tend to form bridges of material across the perforated area. Ion-milling at very low angles of incidence ( 1-2°) in a direction parallel to the interface can sometimes be used to overcome or at least alleviate these bridging problems. Finally, it should be noted that the use of a crystalline substrate such as silicon provides a convenient reference material for specimen orientation purposes in the TEM. Examination of the substrate EDP can be used to ensure that the substrate normal is aligned exactly perpendicular to the electron beam direction. The thin-film microstructure can then be easily determined. 

TEM images were obtained with a Hitachi model 600 electron microscope at 75 kV. Before every TEM session, the electron beam was aligned to minimize optical artifacts. 

FIGURE 5.17 Cellulose diffraction patterns. Top left synchrotron radiation x-ray diffraction pattern for cotton fiber bundle. The fiber was vertical and the white circle and line correspond to a shadow from the main beam catcher and its support. (Credit to Zakhia Ford.) Top right electron diffraction pattern of fragments of cotton secondary wall. The much shorter arcs in the top right figure are due to the good alignment and small number of crystallites in the electron beam. (Credit to Richard J. Schmidt.) Bottom a synthesized powder pattern for cellulose, based on the unit cell dimensions and crystalline coordinates of Nishiyama et al. [209]. (Credit to Zakhia Ford.) Also shown are the hkl values for the Miller indices. The 2-theta values are for molybdenum radiation instead of the more commonly used copper radiation. 

Figure 5 shows schematically the misfit dislocation orientation and possible Burgers vectors (grey vectors). The electron-beam direction and dislocation lines are aligned parallel to the [11-20] direction. 60° or 120° misfit dislocations are characterized by ba = 1/3 [-12-10] and 1/3 [-2110]. The edge component be = Vi [1-100] is compatible with an inserted (1-100) plane as observed in Fig.4(b). It can assumed that three set of misfit dislocations along the three directions are present in the (0001) interface plane. 

In previous work (Chems and Jiao, 2001) dislocations with [0001]-line directions were aligned parallel to the electron beam, which is adequate to maximize the contribution of the line charge to the phase shift of the electron wave. However, the formation of pits at the intersection line of the dislocation with the surface due to ion etching of the sample is difficult to avoid and to detect. By analyzing embedded dislocations, thickness modifications, which also shift the phase with respect to the surrounding material according to Eq.(2), can be eliminated definitely. In addition, dynamical contributions to the phase shift are more difficult to exclude if... 

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