Electron tomography imaging methods with diffraction contrast for materials research

Satoshi Hata; Hiromitsu Furukawa; Takashi Gondo; Daisuke Hirakami; Noritaka Horii; Ken-Ichi Ikeda; Katsumi Kawamoto; Kosuke Kimura; Syo Matsumura; Masatoshi Mitsuhara; Hiroya Miyazaki; Shinsuke Miyazaki; Mitsu Mitsuhiro Murayama; Hideharu Nakashima; Hikaru Saito; Masashi Sakamoto; Shigeto Yamasaki

doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfaa002

Electron tomography imaging methods with diffraction contrast for materials research

Microscopy (Oxf). 2020 May 21;69(3):141-155. doi: 10.1093/jmicro/dfaa002.

Authors

Satoshi Hata^{1

2}, Hiromitsu Furukawa³, Takashi Gondo⁴, Daisuke Hirakami⁵, Noritaka Horii³, Ken-Ichi Ikeda⁶, Katsumi Kawamoto³, Kosuke Kimura⁷, Syo Matsumura^{2

8}, Masatoshi Mitsuhara¹, Hiroya Miyazaki⁴, Shinsuke Miyazaki^{4

9}, Mitsu Mitsuhiro Murayama^{10

11

12}, Hideharu Nakashima¹, Hikaru Saito¹, Masashi Sakamoto⁵, Shigeto Yamasaki¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Advanced Materials Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan.
² The Ultramicroscopy Research Center, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan.
³ TEMography Division, System in Frontier Inc., Tachikawa-shi, Tokyo 190-0012, Japan.
⁴ Research Laboratory, Mel-Build Corporation, Fukuoka 819-0025, Japan.
⁵ Steel Research Laboratories, Nippon Steel Corporation, Chiba 293-8511, Japan.
⁶ Division of Materials Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Hokkaido 060-8628, Japan.
⁷ Morphological Research Laboratory, Toray Research Center, Inc., Shiga 520-8567, Japan.
⁸ Department of Applied Quantum Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan.
⁹ Analytical Instruments, Materials and Structural Analysis, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002, Japan.
¹⁰ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA.
¹¹ Energy and Environmental Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, WA 99352, USA.
¹² Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan.

Abstract

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) enable the visualization of three-dimensional (3D) microstructures ranging from atomic to micrometer scales using 3D reconstruction techniques based on computed tomography algorithms. This 3D microscopy method is called electron tomography (ET) and has been utilized in the fields of materials science and engineering for more than two decades. Although atomic resolution is one of the current topics in ET research, the development and deployment of intermediate-resolution (non-atomic-resolution) ET imaging methods have garnered considerable attention from researchers. This research trend is probably not irrelevant due to the fact that the spatial resolution and functionality of 3D imaging methods of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray microscopy have come to overlap with those of ET. In other words, there may be multiple ways to carry out 3D visualization using different microscopy methods for nanometer-scale objects in materials. From the above standpoint, this review paper aims to (i) describe the current status and issues of intermediate-resolution ET with regard to enhancing the effectiveness of TEM/STEM imaging and (ii) discuss promising applications of state-of-the-art intermediate-resolution ET for materials research with a particular focus on diffraction contrast ET for crystalline microstructures (superlattice domains and dislocations) including a demonstration of in situ dislocation tomography.

Keywords: diffraction contrast; dislocation; domain structure; electron tomography; specimen holder; three-dimensional (3D).