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Updated: Sep 8, 2025

Serial Block-Face Scanning Electron Microscopy SBF-SEM of Biological Tissue Samples
Published on: March 26, 2021
Spatial resolution in transmission electron microscopy
1Physics Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 2E1, Canada.
Abstract:
We review the practical factors that determine the spatial resolution of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning-transmission electron microscopy (STEM), then enumerate the advantages of representing resolution in terms of a point-spread function. PSFs are given for the major resolution-limiting factors: aperture diffraction, spherical and chromatic aberration, beam divergence, beam broadening, Coulomb delocalization, radiolysis damage and secondary-electron generation from adatoms or atoms in a matrix. We note various definitions of beam broadening, complications of describing this effect in very thin specimens, and ways of optimizing the resolution in bright-field STEM of thick samples. Beam spreading in amorphous and crystalline materials is compared by means of simulations. For beam-sensitive specimens, we emphasize the importance of dose-limited resolution (DLR) and briefly recognize efforts to overcome the fundamental resolution limits set by the wave and particle properties of electrons.
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