Hollow Ptychography: Toward Simultaneous 4D Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy and Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy

With the recent development of high-acquisition-speed pixelated detectors, 4D scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) is becoming routinely available in high-resolution electron microscopy. 4D-STEM acts as a “universal” method that provides local information on materials that is challenging to extract from bulk techniques. It extends conventional STEM imaging to include super-resolution techniques and to provide quantitative phase-based information, such as differential phase contrast, ptychography, or Bloch wave phase retrieval. However, an important missing factor is the chemical and bonding information provided by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). 4D-STEM and EELS cannot currently be acquired simultaneously due to the overlapping geometry of the detectors. Here, the feasibility of modifying the detector geometry to overcome this challenge for bulk specimens is demonstrated, and the use of a partial or defective detector for ptycholgaphic structural imaging is explored. Results show that structural information beyond the diffraction-limit and chemical information from the material can be extracted together, resulting in simultaneous multi-modal measurements, adding the additional dimensions of spectral information to 4D datasets.