PhD course: Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy and its applications in Materials Science

PhD course: Aberration Corrected Electron Microscopy and its applications in
Materials Science

Course points: 3 hp

Course period: 11 -15 October 2021

Number of places: 12
(12 places for full course; the lectures can be attended by more participants and including
collaborators from companies)

Language: English

The course purpose:
The aim of the course and its motivation is to provide a deepened knowledge about
advanced transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with focus on opportunities in
modern microscopes such as aberration correction, spectroscopy and data
interpretation. The lecturers are expert at different fields of electron microscopy and
spectroscopy from the CEM4MAT center, established in 2017. The course also has an
esteemed invited guest lecturer contributing to the course.

Specifically:
The course aims at covering advanced aspects of TEM available in the recently
installed aberration corrected TEMs in Stockholm and Uppsala. The course will
provide the students with a deeper understanding for theoretical aspects of these
new opportunities as well as practical experience on how to approach them. The
course also aims at providing tools to analyze the data obtained both through
simulations and multivariate statistics.
The course addresses PhD students from all domains of materials science, chemistry,
physics and related fields. Since the course cover the utilization of advanced TEM it
mainly targets students with previous background in electron microscopy, e.g. a
completed introductory course in electron microscopy.

Course Methodology:
The course will build advanced knowledge linking 5 lectures with subsequent
practical session applying the topics described in the theoretical section. The
participants are expected to attend all the lectures as well as the practical sessions.

Course contents
Lectures (3 h each lecture):
1. Introductory Lecture:
The first lecture of the course will introduce concepts of TEM imaging both in
conventional TEM mode and scanning TEM. The lecture will cover general scattering
and optics and aims at bringing the student to a common ground for the
continuation of the course.

2. Aberration correction:
Theoretical aspects of aberrations and how to correct its effect including optical
design of a corrector. Applications of aberration corrected electron microscopy in
materials science. This lecture will be given by the invited lecturer Prof. Quentin
Ramasse from the SuperSTEM facility, Daresbury UK.

3. Spectroscopy: Core/Low-loss EELS and EDX:
Ever since the beginnings of spectroscopy, there was a fascination to build
instruments with which one can obtain atomic resolution in spectroscopy. This
dream has become reality since advent of aberration corrected TEMs using the
techniques of EELS and EDX. The lectures will introduce these techniques and show
how quantitative spectroscopic information can be obtained in the TEM with subnanometer down to atomic resolution.

4. Simulations:
Basic theories behind simulations of elastic and inelastic scattering of electrons on
matter will be outlined. Examples of simulation results will be shown and compared
with experimental data. Overview of selected simulation software packages will be
given.

5. Multivariate statistics:
Modern transmission electron microscopes are capable of simultaneously acquiring
very large volumes of data from multiple detector modalities. The increased signal
diversity coupled with the increased informational content requires a novel approach
to data analysis. In this lecture, we present an overview of numerical methods for
managing these large data sets while simultaneously identifying features of
statistical significance. We then cover ways to map correlations between features
extracted from disparate data blocks.

Labs
The labs will be conducted in afternoons and will cover topics introduced in the
lectures. The aim of the labs is to provide a practical understanding of the concepts
introduced in the lectures and a focus on obtaining material science knowledge. The
lab sessions will include both hands on use of aberration corrected microscopes as
well as computational work for data treatment and simulations. The arrangement of
the practical sessions might be adjusted to fit the pandemic situation.

Target group/s and recommended background
Students from chemistry, engineering, material science, physics or adjacent fields.
Admission to the course requires knowledge equivalent to basic transmission
electron microscopy course at postgraduate level, e.g. Introduction to Analytical
Electron Microscopy (code: KZ8009 at SU) or an equivalent course given elsewhere.

Examination
The students are expected to attend all lectures and practical sessions. The
examination will be in the form of a written assignment which will cover concepts
introduced both in the theoretical and practical parts of the course.

Main responsible institutions:
- Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry at Stockholm
University (SU)
- Engineering Sciences at Uppsala University (UU)

Lecturers:
- Klaus Leifer (KL), klaus.leifer@Angstrom.uu.se
- Jan Rusz (JR), jan.rusz@physics.uu.se
- Thomas Thersleff (TT), thomas.thersleff@mmk.su.se
- Tom Willhammar (TW), tom.willhammar@mmk.su.se
- Guest lecturer: Quentin Ramasse (QR), SuperSTEM, UK

Contact persons
Tom Willhammar (TW), tom.willhammar@mmk.su.se
Klaus Leifer (KL), klaus.leifer@Angstrom.uu.se

Application from course participants should be sent to:
Tom Willhammar (TW), tom.willhammar@mmk.su.se

Deadline for applications: 1st Sept 2021 (first come first serve)

Preliminary schedule (date and place)

Date	Lecture (morning)	Lecturer	Labs (afternoon)	Place
11/10	1	TW	Imaging at Themis Z	Stockholm
12/10	2	QR	Aberration correction	Uppsala
13/10	3	KL	Spectroscopy	Uppsala
14/10	4	JR	Simulations	Uppsala
15/10	5	TT	Statistical data treatment	Stockholm