title: On the influence of the electron dose rate on the HRTEM image contrast.
abstract: We investigate a possible dependence between the applied electron dose-rate and the magnitude of the resulting image contrast in HRTEM of inorganic crystalline objects. The present study is focussed on the question whether electron irradiation can induce excessively strong atom vibrations or displacements, which in turn could significantly reduce the resulting image contrast. For this purpose, high-resolution images of MgO, Ge, and Au samples were acquired with varying dose rates using a CS-corrected FEI Titan 80-300 microscope operated at 300kV accelerating voltage. This investigation shows that the magnitude of the signal contrast is independent from the dose rates occurring in conventional HRTEM experiments and that excessively strong vibrations or displacements of bulk atoms are not induced by the applied electron irradiation.
authors.affiliation: RWTH Aachen University, Ahornstraße 55, 52074 Aachen, Germany; Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany. Electronic address: ju.barthel@fz-juelich.de.
authors.forename: Juri
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barthel
authors.affiliation: Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany; Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lentzen
authors.affiliation: Peter Grünberg Institute, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany; Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thust
keywords: Beam damage; Debye-Waller factor; Dose rate; Electron dose; HRTEM; Stobbs factor; TEM