skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Quantitative comparison of bright field and annular bright field imaging modes for characterization of oxygen octahedral tilts

Journal Article · · Ultramicroscopy
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon (Korea, Republic of); Inst. for Basic Science (IBS), Suwon (Korea, Republic of)
  2. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore)
  3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Octahedral tilt behavior is increasingly recognized as an important contributing factor to the physical behavior of perovskite oxide materials and especially their interfaces, necessitating the development of high-resolution methods of tilt mapping. There are currently two major approaches for quantitative imaging of tilts in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), bright field (BF) and annular bright field (ABF). In this study, we show that BF STEM can be reliably used for measurements of oxygen octahedral tilts. While optimal conditions for BF imaging are more restricted with respect to sample thickness and defocus, we find that BF imaging with an aberration-corrected microscope with the accelerating voltage of 300 kV gives us the most accurate quantitative measurement of the oxygen column positions. Using the tilted perovskite structure of BiFeO3 (BFO) as our test sample, we simulate BF and ABF images in a wide range of conditions, identifying the optimal imaging conditions for each mode. Finally, we show that unlike ABF imaging, BF imaging remains directly quantitatively interpretable for a wide range of the specimen mistilt, suggesting that it should be preferable to the ABF STEM imaging for quantitative structure determination.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Inst. for Basic Science (Korea, Republic of); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; IBS-R011-D1; NRF-2015M3D1A1070672
OSTI ID:
1394370
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1396515
Journal Information:
Ultramicroscopy, Vol. 181; ISSN 0304-3991
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 33 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (40)

Beyond Condensed Matter Physics on the Nanoscale: The Role of Ionic and Electrochemical Phenomena in the Physical Functionalities of Oxide Materials journal November 2012
Octahedral Rotation-Induced Ferroelectricity in Cation Ordered Perovskites journal April 2012
Control of octahedral connectivity in perovskite oxide heterostructures: An emerging route to multifunctional materials discovery journal March 2012
Mapping Octahedral Tilts and Polarization Across a Domain Wall in BiFeO 3 from Z-Contrast Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Image Atomic Column Shape Analysis journal October 2010
Suppression of Octahedral Tilts and Associated Changes in Electronic Properties at Epitaxial Oxide Heterostructure Interfaces journal August 2010
Atomically Resolved Mapping of Polarization and Electric Fields Across Ferroelectric/Oxide Interfaces by Z-contrast Imaging journal April 2011
Unit-cell scale mapping of ferroelectricity and tetragonality in epitaxial ultrathin ferroelectric films journal December 2006
Atomic-scale study of electric dipoles near charged and uncharged domain walls in ferroelectric films journal December 2007
Interplay of Octahedral Tilts and Polar Order in BiFeO 3 Films journal March 2013
Probing oxygen vacancy concentration and homogeneity in solid-oxide fuel-cell cathode materials on the subunit-cell level journal August 2012
Exploring Mesoscopic Physics of Vacancy-Ordered Systems through Atomic Scale Observations of Topological Defects journal August 2012
Oxygen octahedron reconstruction in the SrTiO 3 / LaAlO 3 heterointerfaces investigated using aberration-corrected ultrahigh-resolution transmission electron microscopy journal February 2009
Towards 3D Mapping of BO 6 Octahedron Rotations at Perovskite Heterointerfaces, Unit Cell by Unit Cell journal July 2015
Simultaneous visualization of oxygen vacancies and the accompanying cation shifts in a perovskite oxide by combining annular imaging techniques journal May 2012
Direct oxygen imaging within a ceramic interface, with some observations upon the dark contrast at the grain boundary journal March 2011
Atom-by-atom structural and chemical analysis by annular dark-field electron microscopy journal March 2010
Direct imaging of hydrogen-atom columns in a crystal by annular bright-field electron microscopy journal February 2011
Direct Atomic-Scale Imaging of Hydrogen and Oxygen Interstitials in Pure Niobium Using Atom-Probe Tomography and Aberration-Corrected Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy journal December 2012
Direct Imaging of Hydrogen within a Crystalline Environment journal November 2010
Robust atomic resolution imaging of light elements using scanning transmission electron microscopy journal November 2009
Direct visualization method of the atomic structure of light and heavy atoms with double-detector C s -corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy journal September 2012
Reversible contrast in focus series of annular bright field images of a crystalline LiMn2O4 nanowire journal February 2013
Atomic level observation of octahedral distortions at the perovskite oxide heterointerface journal July 2013
Control of Structural Distortions in Transition-Metal Oxide Films through Oxygen Displacement at the Heterointerface journal April 2014
Sample tilt effects on atom column position determination in ABF–STEM imaging journal January 2016
Misalignment Induced Artifacts in Quantitative Annular Bright-Field Imaging journal July 2016
Direct mapping of Li-enabled octahedral tilt ordering and associated strain in nanostructured perovskites journal August 2015
Physics and Applications of Bismuth Ferrite journal June 2009
The classification of tilted octahedra in perovskites journal November 1972
Interface control of bulk ferroelectric polarization journal May 2012
Oxygen octahedra picker: A software tool to extract quantitative information from STEM images journal September 2016
The phase contrast characteristics in bright field electron microscopy journal January 1978
Dynamics of annular bright field imaging in scanning transmission electron microscopy journal June 2010
Experimental study of annular bright field (ABF) imaging using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) journal March 2012
Efficient phase contrast imaging in STEM using a pixelated detector. Part 1: Experimental demonstration at atomic resolution journal April 2015
Detecting and locating light atoms from high-resolution STEM images: The quest for a single optimal design journal November 2016
Does Crystal Tilt Enhance the Electron Interaction? journal August 1998
Simultaneous orientation and thickness mapping in transmission electron microscopy journal March 2015
A new method to detect and correct sample tilt in scanning transmission electron microscopy bright-field imaging journal February 2017
Tuning magnetic anisotropy by interfacially engineering the oxygen coordination environment in a transition metal oxide journal March 2016

Cited By (7)

Atomic-scale measurement of polar entropy journal September 2019
Emerging Electron Microscopy Techniques for Probing Functional Interfaces in Energy Materials journal October 2019
Correlation between Geometrically Induced Oxygen Octahedral Tilts and Multiferroic Behaviors in BiFeO 3 Films journal March 2018
Electrochemical and Structural Analysis in All‐Solid‐State Lithium Batteries by Analytical Electron Microscopy: Progress and Perspectives journal October 2019
Material structure, properties, and dynamics through scanning transmission electron microscopy journal April 2018
Emerging Electron Microscopy Techniques for Probing Functional Interfaces in Energy Materials journal January 2020
Materials Structure, Properties and Dynamics through Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy text January 2019

Similar Records

Correlation between Geometrically Induced Oxygen Octahedral Tilts and Multiferroic Behaviors in BiFeO3 Films
Journal Article · Mon Mar 26 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Advanced Functional Materials · OSTI ID:1394370

Extended Oxygen Octahedral Tilt Proximity near Oxide Heterostructures
Journal Article · Mon Jan 30 00:00:00 EST 2023 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1394370

On the visibility of very thin specimens in annular bright field scanning transmission electron microscopy
Journal Article · Mon Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Applied Physics Letters · OSTI ID:1394370