Article contents
Disentangling Coexisting Structural Order Through Phase Lock-In Analysis of Atomic-Resolution STEM Data
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2022
Abstract
As a real-space technique, atomic-resolution STEM imaging contains both amplitude and geometric phase information about structural order in materials, with the latter encoding important information about local variations and heterogeneities present in crystalline lattices. Such phase information can be extracted using geometric phase analysis (GPA), a method which has generally focused on spatially mapping elastic strain. Here we demonstrate an alternative phase demodulation technique and its application to reveal complex structural phenomena in correlated quantum materials. As with other methods of image phase analysis, the phase lock-in approach can be implemented to extract detailed information about structural order and disorder, including dislocations and compound defects in crystals. Extending the application of this phase analysis to Fourier components that encode periodic modulations of the crystalline lattice, such as superlattice or secondary frequency peaks, we extract the behavior of multiple distinct order parameters within the same image, yielding insights into not only the crystalline heterogeneity but also subtle emergent order parameters such as antipolar displacements. When applied to atomic-resolution images spanning large (~0.5 × 0.5 μm2) fields of view, this approach enables vivid visualizations of the spatial interplay between various structural orders in novel materials.
- Type
- Software and Instrumentation
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America
Footnotes
Current address: Rowland Institute at Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
Current address: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
References
- 10
- Cited by