Extended depth of field for high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy

Aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEMs) provide sub-Angstrom lateral resolution; however, the large convergence angle greatly reduces the depth of field. For microscopes with a small depth of field, information outside of the focal plane quickly becomes blurred and less defined. It may not be possible to image some samples entirely in focus. Extended depth-of-field techniques, however, allow a single image, with all areas in focus, to be extracted from a series of images focused at a range of depths. In recent years, a variety of algorithmic approaches have been employed for bright-field optical microscopy. Here, we demonstrate that some established optical microscopy methods can also be applied to extend the ∼ 6 nm depth of focus of a 100 kV 5th-order aberration-corrected STEM (α max = 33 mrad) to image Pt-Co nanoparticles on a thick vulcanized carbon support. These techniques allow us to automatically obtain a single image with all the particles in focus as well as a complimentary topography map.