Electron interference effects in electron projection microscopy

This article discusses manifestations of wave interference phenomena in electron projection microscopy (EPM), and how these effects may explain the existence of what appear to be atomic resolution details in EPM images of very thin Au films. It has been pointed out that the projected shadow image can be considered to be an in‐line hologram of the object, and that it is possible to reconstruct high resolution information about an object from a hologram. Theories of EPM hologram formation and atomic resolution image reconstruction have been put forth, however, they do not predict that atomic scale defects will be visible in the direct shadow image, only in the reconstructed image. The work presented here suggests an alternative explanation of the EPM images, one based on considering holes in the Au film to be point sources of spherical waves. Actual EPM images of Au(100) films are compared to simulated images that result from calculations based on the model. The model provides a simple explanation of lattic...