Transmission Electron Microscopy at the Quantum Limit

TL;DR

This paper develops a quantum-informed framework to evaluate the information efficiency of electron microscopes, showing potential for significantly surpassing current phase imaging limits.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum metrology-based framework to assess and compare the information capacity of electron microscopes.

Findings

Quantum limit for information per electron is at least ten times higher than current methods.

Phase imaging can potentially reach the quantum limit, surpassing aberration-free Zernike contrast.

Framework enables evaluation of microscope architectures against fundamental quantum bounds.

Abstract

A number of visions for a new generation of dose-efficient electron microscopes have been advanced. These proposals, while inspired by quantum principles, make little contact with the broader field of quantum metrology. We discuss a framework calculating the amount of information carried by each electron. This makes it possible to evaluate the potential effectiveness of any particular microscope architecture relative to the quantum limit for information per dose. In the case of phase imaging, we argue this limit is at least an order of magnitude beyond what is possible with aberration-free Zernike phase contrast.