Structure retrieval in liquid-phase electron scattering

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel data analysis method for liquid-phase electron scattering that does not rely on theoretical or empirical inputs, improving the accuracy of molecular structure retrieval from experimental data.

Contribution

The work presents an alternative data treatment approach for liquid-phase electron scattering that eliminates the need for theoretical and empirical corrections.

Findings

Successfully retrieved molecular structures of various liquids.

Demonstrated improved accuracy over traditional methods.

Validated the method on multiple liquid samples.

Abstract

Electron scattering on liquid samples has been enabled recently by the development of ultrathin liquid sheet technologies. The data treatment of liquid-phase electron scattering has been mostly reliant on methodologies developed for gas electron diffraction, in which theoretical inputs and empirical fittings are often needed to account for the atomic form factor and remove the inelastic scattering background. The accuracy and impact of these theoretical and empirical inputs has not been benchmarked for liquid-phase electron scattering data. In this work, we present an alternative data treatment method that requires neither theoretical inputs nor empirical fittings. The merits of this new method are illustrated through the retrieval of real-space molecular structure from experimental electron scattering patterns of liquid water, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, and dichloromethane.