A method for determining foil thicknesses in TEM by using convergent beam electron diffraction under weak beam conditions

In the present work, convergent beam electron diffraction was studied in zirconium (a material of intermediate atomic number) at 300 keV, under weak beam diffraction conditions. For a particular thickness, the details in an observed low order disc were matched to those calculated using the multibeam dynamical theory. This presents the possibility of determining foil thickness over a wide range, with an estimated experimental accuracy of ≈7% or less. In contrast to other convergent beam techniques, the present method, which uses weak beam conditions, can employ commonly-occurring low order reflections to extract thicknesses.

A simple equation based on the two beam approximation, is derived to determine foil thickness (to within ≈ 10%) without resorting to detailed image matching. This equation can be used for a rough estimate of foil thickness while carrying out TEM observations.