Quantitative chemical mapping at the atomic scale

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates atomic-resolution chemical mapping using electron microscopes, achieving quantitative measurements by accounting for dynamical scattering, enabling precise element identification and atom counting at the atomic scale.

Contribution

It introduces a method that includes dynamical scattering in both elastic and inelastic channels for accurate quantitative atomic-scale chemical mapping.

Findings

Quantitative agreement between theory and experiment achieved.

Element-specific atom counting demonstrated.

Atomic-resolution chemical maps obtained on an absolute scale.

Abstract

Atomic-scale mapping of the chemical elements in materials is now possible using aberration-corrected electron microscopes but delocalization and multiple scattering can confound image interpretation. Here we report atomic-resolution measurements with the elastic and inelastic signals acquired on an absolute scale. By including dynamical scattering in both the elastic and inelastic channels we obtain quantitative agreement between theory and experiment. Our results enable a close scrutiny of the inelastic scattering physics and demonstrate the possibility of element-specific atom counting.