Future trends in aberration-corrected electron microscopy

The attainable specimen resolution is determined by the instrumental resolution limit d(i) and by radiation damage. Solid objects such as metals are primarily damaged by atom displacement resulting from knock-on collisions of the incident electrons with the atomic nuclei. The instrumental resolution improves appreciably by means of aberration correction. To achieve atomic resolution at voltages below approximately 100 kV and a large number of equally resolved image points, we propose an achromatic electron optical aplanat, which is free of chromatic aberration, spherical aberration and total off-axial coma. Its anisotropic component is eliminated either by a dual objective lens consisting of two separate windings with opposite directions of their currents or by skew octopoles employed in the TEAM corrector. We obtain optimum imaging conditions by operating the aberration-corrected electron microscope at voltages below the knock-on threshold for atom displacement and by shifting the phase of the non-scattered wave by pi/2 or that of the scattered wave by -pi/2. In this negative contrast mode, the phase contrast and the scattering contrast add up with the same sign. The realization of a low-voltage aberration-corrected phase transmission electron microscope for the visualization of radiation-sensitive objects is the aim of the proposed SALVE (Sub-angstrom Low-Voltage Electron microscope) project. This microscope will employ a coma-free objective lens, an obstruction-free phase plate and a novel corrector compensating for the spherical and chromatic aberrations.