Qualification of the tomographic reconstruction in atom probe by advanced spatial distribution map techniques

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Crystallography
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Atom probe tomography (APT) provides 3D elemental and structural information at the atomic scale.
• Extracting precise crystallographic data from APT reconstructions can be challenging due to noise and reconstruction artifacts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate new spatial distribution map (SDM) methods for enhanced crystallographic analysis in APT.
• To improve the accuracy of determining inter-planar spacings and crystallographic angles from 3D APT data.

Main Methods:

• Development of multidirectional z-SDM offset distribution analyses.
• Adaptation of background noise reduction and automatic peak identification algorithms.
• Comparison of multidirectional SDM with single-direction analysis.

Main Results:

• Accurate determination of inter-planar spacings and crystallographic angles using multidirectional SDM.
• Demonstrated effectiveness in poorly resolved or noisy datasets.
• Identification of advantages over single-direction SDM and xy-SDM analysis.

Conclusions:

• The new multidirectional SDM methods significantly improve crystallographic information extraction from APT.
• These techniques offer a robust approach for analyzing complex or low-resolution crystalline structures.
• The methods can aid in calibrating APT reconstruction parameters for experimental optimization.