Contribution of multiple plasmon scattering in low-angle electron diffraction investigated by energy-filtered atomically resolved 4D-STEM

Applied Physics Letters, vol. 121

Abstract

We report the influence of multiple plasmon losses on the dynamical diffraction of high-energy electrons, in a scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) study. Using an experimental setup enabling energy-filtered momentum-resolved STEM, it is shown that the successive excitation of up to five plasmons within the imaged material results in a subsequent and significant redistribution of low-angle intensity in diffraction space. An empirical approach, based on the convolution with a Lorentzian kernel, is shown to reliably model this redistribution in dependence of the energy-loss. Our study demonstrates that both the significant impact of inelastic scattering in low-angle diffraction at elevated specimen thickness and a rather straightforward model can be applied to mimic multiple plasmon scattering, which otherwise is currently not within reach for multislice simulations due to computational complexity.

Authors 3

1. Hoel Laurent Robert Aachen 2nd Institute of Physics

   RWTH Aachen University · Forschungszentrum Jülich · Ernst Ruska Centre

   Affiliation as printed

   2nd Institute of Physics, RWTH Aachen University 2 , Templergraben 55, 52062 Aachen, Germany

   Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Wilhelm-Johnen-Strasse 1 , 52428 Jülich, Germany

2. Benedikt Diederichs

   Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München · Helmholtz Munich · Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 3 , Butenandtstrasse 5-13, 81377 Munich, Germany

   Institute of Biological and Medical Imaging, Helmholtz Zentrum München 4 , 85764 Neuherberg, Germany

3. Knut Müller‐Caspary

   Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München · Forschungszentrum Jülich · Ernst Ruska Centre

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 3 , Butenandtstrasse 5-13, 81377 Munich, Germany

   Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons (ER-C), Forschungszentrum Jülich, Wilhelm-Johnen-Strasse 1 , 52428 Jülich, Germany