Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (PDF)

Stephen J. Pennycook obtained his B.A. degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge, England, in 1975, and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the same institution in 1978. He then continued at the University of Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory in postdoctoral positions until moving to the ORNL Solid State Division in 1982, where he is now the leader of the Electron Microscopy Group. His main research interest is the study of materials through the technique of Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). This technique provides a directly interpretable image of materials at the atomic scale, in which higher atomic numbers (Z) show brighter. It overcomes the phase problem associated with conventional electron microscopy and diffraction techniques by establishing incoherent imaging conditions, the electron equivalent of incoherent imaging in the optical microscope first described by Lord Rayleigh in 1895. Currently, the Solid State Division's 300-kV STEM produces the world's smallest electron probe, just 1.3 angstroms in diameter. The development of the Z-contrast technique has earned Dr. Pennycook an R&D 100 Award, the Heinrich Award from the Microbeam Analysis Society, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Award for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Sciences, and the Materials Research Society Medal. Recently, his research has focused on grain boundaries in ceramics, which resulted in a DOE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Metallurgy and Ceramics, as well as applications to optoelectronic materials, catalysts, and nanoparticles. Dr Peter D. Nellist's research centres on the applications and development of high-resolution electron microscope techniques, in particular scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), including atomic resolution Z-contrast imaging, electron energy-loss spectroscopy and applications of spherical aberration correctors. His technique development work includes methods for the three-dimensional

From the reviews:

“To describe in 18 chapters the current status in a wide field, a dazzling list of no less than 44 distinguished authors has been assembled. Fortunately, the role of the editors has continued well beyond the point of producing their own chapters to ensure that these different contributions are reasonably well integrated with a useful index….The editors’ assertion that the experiment of focusing a beam of electrons down to an atomic scale and measuring its scattering has spectacular outcomes is most abundantly proved here.”

--Archie Howie, Microscopy and Microanalysis

“The book opens with a magnificent 90-page history of STEM by S.J. Pennycook, which traces the story of the instrument from von Ardenne’s microscope of the late 1930s to such very recent innovations as the confocal mode of operation. … Very readable, lavishly illustrated and extremely thorough, this will remain a key publication on the history of the STEM.” (Ultramicroscopy, Vol. 116, 2012)