STEM Aberration Correction: an Integrated Approach

Progress in aberration correction of electron microscopes has been rapid in the last decade. CEOS and Nion, the two companies chiefly responsible for the advent of practical aberration correctors, were started 12 and 11 years ago, respectively, at a time when aberration correction still seemed an impractical dream to many electron microscopists. The first sub-A resolution, directly interpretable aberration-corrected images were published in 2002 [1]. Today, there are more than 100 aberration-corrected electron microscopes in the world, and several more are installed each month. The resolution attained has reached 50 pm (0.5 A) in both STEM and TEM, and the electron current in an atom-sized electron probe can now be such that atomic-resolution STEM/EELS elemental maps can be acquired in less than one minute [2].