A Gaussian Parameterization for Direct Atomic Structure Identification in Electron Tomography

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Singh, Nalini M., Chien, Tiffany, McCray, Arthur R. C., Ophus, Colin, Waller, Laura
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866914205301473280
author Singh, Nalini M.
Chien, Tiffany
McCray, Arthur R. C.
Ophus, Colin
Waller, Laura
author_facet Singh, Nalini M.
Chien, Tiffany
McCray, Arthur R. C.
Ophus, Colin
Waller, Laura
contents Atomic electron tomography (AET) enables the determination of 3D atomic structures by acquiring a sequence of 2D tomographic projection measurements of a particle and then computationally solving for its underlying 3D representation. Classical tomography algorithms solve for an intermediate volumetric representation that is post-processed into the atomic structure of interest. In this paper, we reformulate the tomographic inverse problem to solve directly for the locations and properties of individual atoms. We parameterize an atomic structure as a collection of Gaussians, whose positions and properties are learnable. This representation imparts a strong physical prior on the learned structure, which we show yields improved robustness to real-world imaging artifacts. Simulated experiments and a proof-of-concept result on experimentally-acquired data confirm our method's potential for practical applications in materials characterization and analysis with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Our code is available at https://github.com/nalinimsingh/gaussian-atoms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_15034
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Gaussian Parameterization for Direct Atomic Structure Identification in Electron Tomography
Singh, Nalini M.
Chien, Tiffany
McCray, Arthur R. C.
Ophus, Colin
Waller, Laura
Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Atomic electron tomography (AET) enables the determination of 3D atomic structures by acquiring a sequence of 2D tomographic projection measurements of a particle and then computationally solving for its underlying 3D representation. Classical tomography algorithms solve for an intermediate volumetric representation that is post-processed into the atomic structure of interest. In this paper, we reformulate the tomographic inverse problem to solve directly for the locations and properties of individual atoms. We parameterize an atomic structure as a collection of Gaussians, whose positions and properties are learnable. This representation imparts a strong physical prior on the learned structure, which we show yields improved robustness to real-world imaging artifacts. Simulated experiments and a proof-of-concept result on experimentally-acquired data confirm our method's potential for practical applications in materials characterization and analysis with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Our code is available at https://github.com/nalinimsingh/gaussian-atoms.
title A Gaussian Parameterization for Direct Atomic Structure Identification in Electron Tomography
topic Image and Video Processing
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.15034