Influence of the image quality deterioration of a tilted thick specimen on electron tomography

In electron tomography (ET) based on a transmission electron microscope, the effective thickness of a specimen increases with the tilt angle and, therefore, the projection quality may deteriorate because of electron scattering. The information-missing region, however, can be reduced by broadening the specimen tilt range. To clarify the general influence of these effects on ET, the projection quality varying with the tilt angle was quantitatively evaluated for a 5-microm thick specimen observed with a 3 MV ultrahigh-voltage electron microscope. Simulations of three-dimensional reconstruction were then performed for different specimen thicknesses and tilt ranges. As a result, the ET accuracy was shown to decrease as the specimen thickness increased. However, an optimum specimen-tilt range, at which ET could reach its highest accuracy, was found to exist and become small with the increase of the specimen thickness. The presented results are helpful for determining the specimen thickness limitation on the ET resolution and improving the ET fidelity of thick specimens.