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Title: Tilted fluctuation electron microscopy

Abstract

Fluctuation electron microscopy (FEM) is a scanning nanodiffraction-based method that offers a unique approach to characterizing nanometer-scale medium-range order (MRO) in disordered materials. In addition to determining the degree of MRO, careful analysis of scanning nanodiffraction data can also be used to determine strain in thin film amorphous samples. We applied FEM to characterize the strain and MRO of magnetron sputtered amorphous tantalum (a-Ta) thin films over a range of tilt angles from 0° to 45° in order to measure any deviations between the in-plane and out-of-plane strain and MRO. We validate our approach using electron diffraction simulations of FEM experiments for a-Ta. We measure anisotropic strain in the simulated a-Ta diffraction patterns and find that the experimental a-Ta is isotropically strained within the accuracy of our method. Our approach provides a workflow for acquiring tilted scanning nanodiffraction data, determining the relative strain and ordering as a function of in- A nd out-of-plane directions, and removing any artifacts induced in FEM data due to strain. We also describe some limitations of the tilted FEM method when applied to thin films with very low strains.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [4]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States) ; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States) ; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1756362
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1657270
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Applied Physics Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 117; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Strain measurement; Thin film transistors; Amorphous materials; Electron diffraction; Electron microscopy

Citation Formats

Kennedy, Ellis, Reynolds, Neal, Rangel DaCosta, Luis, Hellman, Frances, Ophus, Colin, and Scott, M. C. Tilted fluctuation electron microscopy. United States: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1063/5.0015532.
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Kennedy, Ellis, Reynolds, Neal, Rangel DaCosta, Luis, Hellman, Frances, Ophus, Colin, & Scott, M. C. Tilted fluctuation electron microscopy. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0015532
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Kennedy, Ellis, Reynolds, Neal, Rangel DaCosta, Luis, Hellman, Frances, Ophus, Colin, and Scott, M. C. Mon . "Tilted fluctuation electron microscopy". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0015532. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1756362.
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@article{osti_1756362,
title = {Tilted fluctuation electron microscopy},
author = {Kennedy, Ellis and Reynolds, Neal and Rangel DaCosta, Luis and Hellman, Frances and Ophus, Colin and Scott, M. C.},
abstractNote = {Fluctuation electron microscopy (FEM) is a scanning nanodiffraction-based method that offers a unique approach to characterizing nanometer-scale medium-range order (MRO) in disordered materials. In addition to determining the degree of MRO, careful analysis of scanning nanodiffraction data can also be used to determine strain in thin film amorphous samples. We applied FEM to characterize the strain and MRO of magnetron sputtered amorphous tantalum (a-Ta) thin films over a range of tilt angles from 0° to 45° in order to measure any deviations between the in-plane and out-of-plane strain and MRO. We validate our approach using electron diffraction simulations of FEM experiments for a-Ta. We measure anisotropic strain in the simulated a-Ta diffraction patterns and find that the experimental a-Ta is isotropically strained within the accuracy of our method. Our approach provides a workflow for acquiring tilted scanning nanodiffraction data, determining the relative strain and ordering as a function of in- A nd out-of-plane directions, and removing any artifacts induced in FEM data due to strain. We also describe some limitations of the tilted FEM method when applied to thin films with very low strains.},
doi = {10.1063/5.0015532},
journal = {Applied Physics Letters},
number = 9,
volume = 117,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Mon Aug 31 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0015532
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