The simultaneous measurement of structural and chemical information at the atomic scale provides fundamental insights into the connection between form and function in materials science and nanotechnology. We demonstrate structural and chemical mapping in Bi(0.5) Sr(0.5) MnO3 using an aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscope. Two-dimensional mapping is made possible by an adapted method for fast acquisition of electron energy-loss spectra. The experimental data are supported by simulations, which help to explain the less intuitive features.

We demonstrate atomic-resolution chemical mapping using energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy in scanning transmission electron microscopy. Theoretical simulations of the imaging process demonstrate that these images are directly interpretable. This is due to the fact that the effective ionization interaction is local and this is an incoherent mode of imaging.

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Abstract

We report on three-dimensional (3D) imaging of individual Gd dopant atoms in a thin (∼2.3  nm) foil of SrTiO3, using quantitative scanning transmission electron microscopy. Uncertainties in the depth positions of individual dopants are less than 1 unit cell. The overall dopant concentration measured from atom column intensities agrees quantitatively with electrical measurements. The method is applied to analyze the 3D arrangement of dopants within small clusters containing 4-5 Gd atoms.