Fine electron biprism on a Si-on-insulator chip for off-axis electron holography

Martial Duchamp (1, 2) , Olivier Girard (3) , Giulio Pozzi (4, 2) , Helmut Soltner (5) , Florian Winkler (2) , Rolf Speen (2) , Rafal Dunin-Borkowski (2) , David Cooper (3)

1 Nanyang Technological University [Singapour]
2 Ernst Ruska-Centre for Microscopy and Spectroscopy with Electrons - Peter Grünberg Institute
3 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
4 University of Bologna/Università di Bologna
5 Central Institute for Engineering, Electronics and Analytics (ZEA)

Off-axis electron holography allows both the amplitude and the phase shift of an electron wavefield propagating through a specimen in a transmission electron microscope to be recovered. The technique requires the use of an electron biprism to deflect an object wave and a reference wave to form an interference pattern. Here, we introduce an approach based on semiconductor processing technology to fabricate fine electron biprisms with rectangular cross-sections. By performing electrostatic calculations and preliminary experiments, we demonstrate that such biprisms promise improved performance for electron holography experiments.

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

Martial Duchamp, Olivier Girard, Giulio Pozzi, Helmut Soltner, Florian Winkler, et al.. Fine electron biprism on a Si-on-insulator chip for off-axis electron holography. Ultramicroscopy, 2018, 185, pp.81-89. ⟨10.1016/j.ultramic.2017.11.012⟩. ⟨cea-02185407⟩