Elemental mapping of multilayered structures: a method to reconstruct 2D chemical maps from a set of 1D line scans

Abstract

We introduce a method to characterize the chemical distribution in nanostructures using STEM and affiliated spectroscopy techniques. The method is applicable to any nanostructure where the continuous layers of arbitrary geometry and dimensions can be identified. The key feature of the suggested approach is digital warping of the original STEM image into the quasi-1D image. The chemical profiles of high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio can be extracted from the minimal set of the STEM spectroscopy data while minimizing material damage during acquisitions. Finally, the 2D chemical maps of the area of interest are reconstructed.