Effect of reference region size on strain measurements using geometrical phase analysis

Geometrical phase analysis (GPA) is typically a powerful tool to investigate the deformation in high resolution transmission electron microscopy images and has been used in various fields. During GPA, strain components are calculated relative to an undistorted reference region. In the present work, the effect of reference region size on strain measurements has been investigated. Experimental measurements on a locally distorted gold nanoparticle exhibited that a small reference region below the GPA spatial resolution can introduce an inaccuracy in the measured displacement field, which appears as a significant increase in measured strains and severe fluctuation in phase images. The inaccuracy may be ascribed to an error of insufficient sampling. Our results suggest that a small reference region below the GPA spatial resolution should be avoided during GPA. This prerequisite should be paid more attention to during strain measurement on nanoparticles.