Parameter dependence of depth and lateral resolution of transmission Kikuchi diffraction

Abstract

The spatial resolution of transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD) depends on experimental parameters such as atomic number, accelerating voltage, sample backtilt and thickness. In this work, the dependence of spatial resolution on these parameters is explored by using bilayered coarse-grained/nanocrystalline samples to determine the depth resolution. Digital image correlation of the Kikuchi patterns across grain boundaries is used to measure the lateral resolution. The depth resolutions of TKD in aluminium, copper and platinum at 30 kV for an untilted sample were 80, 32 and 14 nm respectively. These worsened with increasing sample backtilt and slightly improved with decreasing accelerating voltage. The best physical lateral resolution obtained was 6 nm, at 30 keV in a 41 nm thick aluminium sample with no backtilt. The lateral resolution worsened with increasing sample thickness and backtilt, contrasting with some previous reports. Accelerating voltage and atomic number did not have a significant impact on the measured lateral resolution within the scatter in the data.