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Main Authors: Bennemann, Felix, Kirkland, Angus I., Muller, David A., Nellist, Peter
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12037
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author Bennemann, Felix
Kirkland, Angus I.
Muller, David A.
Nellist, Peter
author_facet Bennemann, Felix
Kirkland, Angus I.
Muller, David A.
Nellist, Peter
contents High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) is an important method for imaging beam sensitive materials often under cryo conditions. Electron ptychography in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) has been shown to reconstruct low-noise phase data at a reduced fluence for such materials. This raises the question of whether ptychography or HRTEM provides a more fluence-efficient imaging technique. Even though the transfer function is a common metric for evaluating the performance of an imaging method, it only describes the signal transfer with respect to spatial frequency, irrespective of the noise transfer. It can also not be well defined for methods, such as ptychography, that use an algorithm to form the final image. Here we apply the concept of detective quantum efficiency (DQE) to electron microscopy as a fluence independent and sample independent measure of technique performance. We find that, for a weak-phase object, ptychography can never reach the efficiency of a perfect Zernike phase imaging microscope but that ptychography is more robust to partial coherence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_12037
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Detective quantum efficiency based comparison of HRTEM and ptychography phase imaging
Bennemann, Felix
Kirkland, Angus I.
Muller, David A.
Nellist, Peter
Materials Science
High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) is an important method for imaging beam sensitive materials often under cryo conditions. Electron ptychography in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) has been shown to reconstruct low-noise phase data at a reduced fluence for such materials. This raises the question of whether ptychography or HRTEM provides a more fluence-efficient imaging technique. Even though the transfer function is a common metric for evaluating the performance of an imaging method, it only describes the signal transfer with respect to spatial frequency, irrespective of the noise transfer. It can also not be well defined for methods, such as ptychography, that use an algorithm to form the final image. Here we apply the concept of detective quantum efficiency (DQE) to electron microscopy as a fluence independent and sample independent measure of technique performance. We find that, for a weak-phase object, ptychography can never reach the efficiency of a perfect Zernike phase imaging microscope but that ptychography is more robust to partial coherence.
title Detective quantum efficiency based comparison of HRTEM and ptychography phase imaging
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.12037