Three-dimensional reconstruction of buried nanoparticles by element-sensitive tomography based on inelastically scattered electrons

Abstract

Energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy is used to image the nanocomposite FeAl+Y2O3, an oxide-dispersion-strengthened intermetallic alloy, over a tilt range of ±60° using inelastically scattered electrons only. The properties of electron spectroscopic imaging are exploited to recover a projection relationship between the three-dimensional chemical concentration distribution and the micrographs. This allows recovery of the full information on volume shape, distribution, and homogeneity of the buried nanoparticles by backprojection. Restrictions to low atomic number, common in bio-objects, are here overcome at the expense of higher electron exposures.

Electron tomography: a tool for 3D structural probing of heterogeneous catalysts at the nanometer scale

“…At the same time, important first experiments in the direction of spectroscopic tomography were made. Inclusions of chromium rich carbide structures in a 316 stainless steel and of Y 2 O 3 nanoparticles in a polycrystalline FeAl intermetallic alloy were characterized by 3D mapping of the chromium and iron distributions, respectively, by energy filtered electron tomography [14,15].…”

Linear chemically sensitive electron tomography using DualEELS and dictionary-based compressed sensing

“…Recently, ET has been performed using spectroscopic signals, including X-ray spectroscopy [51,52], energy-filtered TEM (EFTEM) [53][54][55][56], and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) [6,7,57] in the STEM, to achieve a chemically sensitive 3D reconstruction. Additionally, low-loss EELS has recently been used to allow a three-dimensional reconstruction of plasmon modes on silver nanocubes [4].…”

Microstructural Characterization of Hard Ceramics

“…(Kelly and Miller, 2007, Miller and Forbes, 2009, Seidman, 2007 At the same time, advances in electron tomography in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) have made it possible to make three--dimensional images at slightly lower resolution. (Barnard et al, 2006, Batenburg et al, 2009, Mobus and Inkson, 2001, Weyland et al, 2006 The Dual Beam, Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscope (DB--FIB SEM) makes three--dimensional imaging and crystallography mapping possible at the submicron level. (Dillon and Rohrer, 2009b At larger length scales, X--ray tomography (Chen et al, 2010, Chino andDunand, 2008) and high energy X--ray diffraction microscopy (HEDM) (Hefferan et al, 2009, Larson et al, 2002, Poulsen et al, 2001) allow phase mapping and crystallographic mapping, respectively.…”