ViPErLEED package II: Spot tracking, extraction and processing of I(V) curves

TL;DR

The ViPErLEED package II provides user-friendly, automated tools for analyzing LEED images, including spot detection, tracking, and I(V) curve processing, leveraging astronomical image analysis techniques.

Contribution

It introduces an open-source, ImageJ-based software suite for efficient, automated LEED data extraction and analysis, improving speed and accuracy over manual methods.

Findings

Automated spot detection and tracking in less than a minute for complex structures.

Effective correction of camera and screen inhomogeneities.

Open-source implementation as ImageJ plugins.

Abstract

As part of the ViPErLEED project (Vienna package for Erlangen LEED, low-energy electron diffraction), computer programs have been developed for facile and user-friendly data extraction from movies of LEED images. The programs make use of some concepts from astronomical image processing and analysis. As a first step, flat-field and dark-frame corrections reduce the effects of inhomogeneities of the camera and screen. In a second step, for identifying all diffraction maxima ("spots"), it is sufficient to manually mark and label a single spot or very few spots. Then the program can automatically identify all other spots and determine the distortions of the image. This forms the basis for automatic spot tracking (following the "beams" as they move across the LEED screen) and intensity measurement. Even for complex structures with hundreds to a few thousand diffraction beams, this step takes less than a minute. The package also includes a program for further processing of these I(V) curves (averaging of equivalent beams, manual and/or automatic selection, smoothing) as well as several utilities. The software is implemented as a set of plugins for the public-domain image processing program ImageJ and provided as an open-source package.