Design and Construction of an Optical TEM Specimen Holder

Abstract

Optical imaging and spectroscopy provide rich information about the energy states of materials. However, their spatial resolution is limited by the wavelength of (visible) light to about 0.5 μm. Electron microscopy can achieve sub-angstrom resolution but provides limited spectral information with the exception of STEM EELS, which due to recent advances has become a powerful tool to probe the energy states of materials [1]. We recently proposed combining spectrally selective photoexcitation with HRTEM to achieve sub-nm scale optical imaging, a technique we called ‘PAMELA’ [2]. The experimental realization of PAMELA-TEM, however, requires introduction of light inside a TEM with a sufficiently high photon flux to produce a detectable signal.