Fast Pixelated Detectors in Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy. Part I: Data Acquisition, Live Processing and Storage

TL;DR

This paper discusses software solutions to overcome technical challenges in using fast pixelated detectors for STEM, enabling improved data acquisition, processing, and storage with open-source tools demonstrated on Medipix3 data.

Contribution

It introduces software methods for real-time data handling in STEM with pixelated detectors, facilitating wider adoption and community development.

Findings

Successful implementation of software for live data processing

Open-source tools enhance accessibility and reproducibility

Demonstrated with Medipix3 detector data

Abstract

The use of fast pixelated detectors and direct electron detection technology is revolutionising many aspects of scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). The widespread adoption of these new technologies is impeded by the technical challenges associated with them. These include issues related to hardware control, and the acquisition, real-time processing and visualisation, and storage of data from such detectors. We discuss these problems and present software solutions for them, with a view to making the benefits of new detectors in the context of STEM more accessible. Throughout, we provide examples of the application of the technologies presented, using data from a Medipix3 direct electron detector. Most of our software is available under an open source licence, permitting transparency of the implemented algorithms, and allowing the community to freely use and further improve upon them.