Next-Generation Information Technology Systems for Fast Detectors in Electron Microscopy

Abstract

In TEM, the first direct electron detectors for recording images were developed primarily to collect data for cryo electron microscopy (cryo EM), in order to increase the detection quantum efficiency by collecting data from individual electrons rather than integrating the dose of many electrons per pixel (Li, et al., 2013). Fast detectors with somewhat lower number of pixels and very high frame rates were developed for pixelated scanning TEM (pixelated STEM) (Simson, et al., 2015) (Tate, et al., 2016), where a full electron diffraction pattern is recorded for each position of a STEM scan. It has long been known that collections of electron diffraction patterns, in particular from overlapping sample regions, contain a wealth of information about the sample (

Live Processing of Momentum-Resolved STEM Data for First Moment Imaging and Ptychography

“…Within this context, the present work shall be seen as a first step that demonstrates the feasibility of such a workflow using a rather straightforward example. Our work highlights the ongoing push toward high-performance computational methods in electron microscopy that are driven by an increasing camera performance (Weber et al, 2020). That includes suitable software frameworks, connections, storage, processing hardware, and know-how in computer science and engineering to be used in synergy with established and future imaging methodologies.…”

Advances in the electron diffraction characterization of atomic clusters and nanoparticles

“…Beam sensitive samples, such as organic material or ligand protected metallic clusters, require a much lower dose of electron beam radiation to avoid damaging the sample 24 There has been many developments that have improved the high resolution of microscopes at low dose configurations. One of these was the introduction of highly sensitive sensors, which allows the detection of single electron events 25,26 . Low dose beam radiation can also be used in addition to other techniques that allows a wide range of new information that can be attained from the specimen.…”

LiberTEM: Software platform for scalable multidimensional data processing in transmission electron microscopy

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Increases in the data rates of detectors for electron microscopy (EM) have outpaced increases in network, mass storage and memory bandwidth by two orders of magnitude between 2009(Weber, 2018. The LiberTEM open source platform (Clausen et al, 2020) is designed to match the growing performance requirements of EM data processing (Weber, Clausen, & Dunin-Borkowski, 2020).

MotivationThe data rate of the fastest detectors for electron microscopy that are available in 2019 exceeds 50 GB/s, which is faster than the memory bandwidth of typical personal computers (PCs) at this time. Applications from ten years before that ran smoothly on a typical PC have evolved into numerical analysis of complex multidimensional datasets (Ophus, 2019) that require distributed processing on high-performance systems.

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“…Increases in the data rates of detectors for electron microscopy (EM) have outpaced increases in network, mass storage and memory bandwidth by two orders of magnitude between 2009(Weber, 2018. The LiberTEM open source platform (Clausen et al, 2020) is designed to match the growing performance requirements of EM data processing (Weber, Clausen, & Dunin-Borkowski, 2020).…”