hide
Free keywords:
Deformation; High resolution transmission electron microscopy; Image reconstruction; Image registration; Mapping; Scanning electron microscopy; STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics); Transmission electron microscopy, Atomic resolution; Non-rigid; Nonrigid image registration; Nonrigid registration; Quantitative imaging; Quantitative interpretation; Scanning transmission electron microscopes; Strain mapping, Atoms, accuracy; algorithm; Article; image acquisition; image analysis; image artifact; image reconstruction; image registration; imaging and display; mathematical model; process development; process optimization; quantitative analysis; scanning transmission electron microscopy; signal noise ratio; spectroscopy
Abstract:
Aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEM) enable to determine local strain fields, composition and bonding states at atomic resolution. The precision to locate atomic columns is often obstructed by scan artifacts limiting the quantitative interpretation of STEM datasets. Here, a novel bias-corrected non-rigid registration approach is presented that compensates for fast and slow scan artifacts in STEM image series. The bias-correction is responsible for the correction of the slow scan artifacts and based on a explicit coupling of the deformations of the individual images in a series via a minimization of the average deformation. This allows to reduce fast scan noise in an image series and slow scan distortions simultaneously. The novel approach is tested on synthetic and experimental images and its implication on atomic resolution strain and elemental mapping is discussed. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.
