High-resolution electron microscopy of the atomic structure of some grain boundaries in Au
The successful determination of the atomic structure of [110] tilt boundaries in Au stems from the investigation of microscope performance at intermediate accelerating voltages (200 and 400kV) as well as a detailed understanding of how grain boundary image features depend on dynamical diffraction processes variation with specimen and beam orientations. This success is also facilitated by improving image quality by digital image processing techniques to the point where a structure image is obtained and each atom position is represented by a resolved image feature. Figure 1 shows an example of a low angle (∼10°) Σ = 129/[110] tilt boundary in a ∼250Å Au film, taken under tilted beam brightfield imaging conditions, to illustrate the steps necessary to obtain the atomic structure configuration from the image. The original image of Fig. 1a shows the regular arrangement of strain-field images associated with the cores of ½ [10] primary dislocations which are separated by ∼15Å.