Recovering atomic-scale chemistry from fused multi-modal electron microscopy

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12498336-B2
Application number	US-202217875333-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 27, 2022
Priority date	Jul 27, 2021
Publication date	Dec 16, 2025
Grant date	Dec 16, 2025

Abstract

Systems and methods for fused multi-modal electron microscopy are provided to generate quantitatively accurate 2D maps or 3D volumes with pixel/voxel values that directly reflect a sample's chemistry. Techniques are provided for combining annular dark field detector (ADF), annular bright field (ABF) and/or pixelated detector image data and energy dispersive X-rays (EDX) data and/or electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) data for a sample and generating chemical 2D and 3D maps by applying minimization optimization process.

First claim

What is claimed:

1 . A method for chemical sample imaging, the method comprising:
receiving energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) image data corresponding to a chemical sample, the EDX image data containing one or more measured chemical maps; receiving annular dark field (ADF) image data or annular bright field (ABF) or pixelated detector (PD) image data corresponding to the chemical sample; correlating the EDX image data and the ADF image data or the ABF or the PD image data using an optimization process that performs a minimization between each of the EDX image data and the ADF image data or the ABF image data and one or more recovered chemical maps of the chemical sample; and in response to the optimization process, generating and displaying and/or storing the one or more recovered chemical maps corresponding to the chemical sample.

2 . A method for chemical sample imaging, the method comprising:
receiving electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) image data corresponding to a chemical sample, the EELS image data containing one or more measured chemical maps corresponding to the chemical sample; receiving annular dark field (ADF) image data or annular bright field (ABF) or pixelated detector (PD) image data corresponding to the chemical sample; correlating the EELS image data and the ADF image data or the ABF image data using an optimization process that performs a minimization between each of the EELS image data and the ADF image data or the ABF or PD image data and one or more recovered chemical maps of the chemical sample; and in response to the optimization process, generating and displaying and/or storing the one or more recovered chemical maps corresponding to the chemical sample.

3 . The method of any of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the optimization process comprises applying an optimization expression as follows:

arg

min
x

λ
1

2

⁢



b
H

-

∑
i

(

Z
i

⁢

x
i

)

γ



2
2

+

λ
2

⁢

∑
i

(

x
i

-

b
i

⁢

log
⁡
(

x
i

)

)

+

λ
3

⁢

∑
i



x
i



TV

where b H is the annular or pixelated detector image data, λ i and γ are weighting coefficients, b i and x i are the measured chemical maps and recovered chemical maps, respectively, i is an element, Z i is a scaling factor, and TV is channel-wise total variation regularization.

4 . The method of any of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the optimization process comprises applying an optimization expression as follows:

arg

min
x

λ
1

2

⁢



b
H

-

∑
i

(

Z
i

⁢

x
i

)

γ



2
2

+

λ
2

2

⁢



b
i

-

x
i



2
2

+

λ
3

⁢

∑
i



x
i



TV

Assignees

• Univ Michigan Regents
• Uchicago Argonne Llc
• Dow Global Technologies Llc

Inventors

• Hovden Robert
• Schwartz Jonathan
• Jiang Yi
• Di Zichao Wendy
• Rozeveld Steven J
• Zheng Huihuo

Classifications

• G01N23/046

  using tomography, e.g. computed tomography [CT] · CPC title

• H01J37/28

  with scanning beams {(H01J37/268, H01J37/292, H01J37/2955 take precedence)} · CPC title

• H01J2237/2802

  Transmission microscopes · CPC title

• G01N23/2251 Primary

  using incident electron beams, e.g. scanning electron microscopy [SEM] · CPC title

• G01N23/2252 Primary

  Measuring emitted X-rays, e.g. electron probe microanalysis [EPMA] · CPC title