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

Abstract

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.

Authors:
 [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)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Inst. for Basic Science (Korea, Republic of); National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF)
OSTI Identifier:
1394370
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1396515
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; IBS-R011-D1; NRF-2015M3D1A1070672
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Ultramicroscopy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 181; Journal ID: ISSN 0304-3991
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; bright field; STEM; perovskite; transition metal oxide; oxygen imaging; octahedral tilt; BiFeO3

Citation Formats

Kim, Young-Min, Pennycook, Stephen J., and Borisevich, Albina Y. Quantitative comparison of bright field and annular bright field imaging modes for characterization of oxygen octahedral tilts. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.04.020.
Kim, Young-Min, Pennycook, Stephen J., & Borisevich, Albina Y. Quantitative comparison of bright field and annular bright field imaging modes for characterization of oxygen octahedral tilts. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.04.020
Kim, Young-Min, Pennycook, Stephen J., and Borisevich, Albina Y. Sat . "Quantitative comparison of bright field and annular bright field imaging modes for characterization of oxygen octahedral tilts". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.04.020. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1394370.
@article{osti_1394370,
title = {Quantitative comparison of bright field and annular bright field imaging modes for characterization of oxygen octahedral tilts},
author = {Kim, Young-Min and Pennycook, Stephen J. and Borisevich, Albina Y.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.04.020},
journal = {Ultramicroscopy},
number = ,
volume = 181,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {4}
}

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Cited by: 33 works
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