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Disentangling Coexisting Structural Order Through Phase Lock-In Analysis of Atomic-Resolution STEM Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2022

Berit H. Goodge Open the ORCID record for Berit H. Goodge [Opens in a new window] ,
Ismail El Baggari ,
Seung Sae Hong ,
Zhe Wang ,
Darrell G. Schlom ,
Harold Y. Hwang  and
Lena F. Kourkoutis Open the ORCID record for Lena F. Kourkoutis [Opens in a new window]
Berit H. Goodge
Affiliation:
School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Ismail El Baggari
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Seung Sae Hong
Affiliation:
Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
Zhe Wang
Affiliation:
School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Darrell G. Schlom
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Harold Y. Hwang
Affiliation:
Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
Lena F. Kourkoutis*
Affiliation:
School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Lena F. Kourkoutis, E-mail: lena.f.kourkoutis@cornell.edu
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Abstract

As a real-space technique, atomic-resolution STEM imaging contains both amplitude and geometric phase information about structural order in materials, with the latter encoding important information about local variations and heterogeneities present in crystalline lattices. Such phase information can be extracted using geometric phase analysis (GPA), a method which has generally focused on spatially mapping elastic strain. Here we demonstrate an alternative phase demodulation technique and its application to reveal complex structural phenomena in correlated quantum materials. As with other methods of image phase analysis, the phase lock-in approach can be implemented to extract detailed information about structural order and disorder, including dislocations and compound defects in crystals. Extending the application of this phase analysis to Fourier components that encode periodic modulations of the crystalline lattice, such as superlattice or secondary frequency peaks, we extract the behavior of multiple distinct order parameters within the same image, yielding insights into not only the crystalline heterogeneity but also subtle emergent order parameters such as antipolar displacements. When applied to atomic-resolution images spanning large (~0.5 × 0.5 μm2) fields of view, this approach enables vivid visualizations of the spatial interplay between various structural orders in novel materials.

Keywords

atomic resolution STEMgeometric phase analysisheterogeneitysuperlatticequantum materials
Type
Software and Instrumentation
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 404 - 411
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America

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Footnotes

†

Current address: Rowland Institute at Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

‡

Current address: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.

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