High-quality imaging of large areas through path-difference ptychography

TL;DR

This paper introduces path difference ptychography (PDP), a novel imaging method that corrects optical path differences in electron microscopy, enabling high-quality, large-area imaging of planar samples for detailed microstructural analysis.

Contribution

The paper presents PDP, a new technique that decouples path differences during reconstruction, improving large-area imaging quality in electron microscopy.

Findings

Enables high-quality imaging over large fields of view.

Facilitates detailed microstructure analysis.

Supports widespread application of ptychographic tomography.

Abstract

Tilting planar samples for multi-zone-axes observation is a routine procedure in electron microscopy. However, this process invariably introduces optical path differences in the electron beam across different sample positions, significantly compromising image quality, particularly over large fields of view. To address this challenge, we developed path difference ptychography (PDP), a method capable of decoupling path differences from the four-dimensional data during reconstruction. This enables the acquisition of high-quality, large-scale images, facilitating a more comprehensive understanding and analysis of materials microstructure. Moreover, PDP has the potential to promote the widespread application of ptychographic tomography in the analysis of planar samples.