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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Using Microwave and Macroscopic Samples of Dielectric Solids to Study the Photonic Properties of Disordered Photonic Bandgap Materials
Published on: September 26, 2014
Direct determination of local lattice polarity in crystals
K A Mkhoyan1, P E Batson, J Cha
1School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. kam55@cornell.edu
Abstract:
With current advances in sub-angstrom resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), it is now possible to image directly local crystal structures of materials where dramatically different atoms are separated from each other at distances about or less than 1 angstrom. We achieved direct imaging of atomic columns of nitrogen in close proximity to columns of aluminum in wurtzite aluminum nitride by using annular dark field imaging in an aberration-corrected STEM. This ability allows direct determination of the local polarity in nanoscale crystals and crystal defects.
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