The origin of atomic displacements in HAADF images of the tilted specimen

Abstract

The effects of the tilt of the crystallographic orientation with respect to an incident electron probe on high-angle annular dark field (HAADF) imaging in aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) have been investigated with experiments and simulations. A small specimen tilt can lead to unequal deviations of different atom species in the HAADF image and result in further relative displacement between anions and cations. Simulated HAADF images also confirm that the crystal tilt causes an artifact in atom polarization as well. The effect is derived from the scattering ability of different atoms.