Abstract
We identify and quantify several practical effects likely to be present in both static and ultrafast electron-scattering experiments that may interfere with the Debye–Waller (DW) effect. Using 120-nm thick, small-grained, polycrystalline aluminum foils as a test system, we illustrate the impact of specimen tilting, in-plane translation, and changes in z height on Debye–Scherrer-ring intensities. We find that tilting by less than one degree can result in statistically-significant changes in diffracted-beam intensities for large specimen regions containing > 105 nanocrystalline grains. We demonstrate that, in addition to effective changes in the field of view with tilting, slight texturing of the film can result in deviations from expected DW-effect behavior. Further, we find that in-plane translations of as little as 20 nm also produce statistically-significant intensity changes, while normalization to total image counts eliminates such effects arising from changes in z height. The results indicate that the use of polycrystalline films in ultrafast electron-scattering experiments can greatly reduce the negative impacts of these effects as compared to single-crystal specimens, though it does not entirely eliminate them. Thus, it is important to account for such effects when studying thin-foil specimens having relatively short reciprocal-lattice rods.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 111-120 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Ultramicroscopy |
Volume | 196 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. 00039202 . Partial support is provided by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-1654318 and by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation in the form of a Beckman Young Investigator Award.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier B.V.
Keywords
- Debye–Waller effect
- In situ electron microscopy
- Transmission electron microscopy
- Ultrafast electron diffraction
- Ultrafast electron microscopy
- Ultrafast structural dynamics