Physical Review Materials· 2026Q1
Bend contour electron tomography (BCET): Quantitative strain and topography mapping
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Bend contour electron tomography (BCET) is a new computational framework that converts transmission electron microscope bend contours into quantitative 2D maps of strain and topography, enabling wide-field imaging of mesoscale structures in freestanding films.
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Key points
- BCET is a computational framework for quantitative strain and topography mapping using transmission electron microscopy.
- It converts bend contours in TEM images into 2D maps without requiring scanning or diffraction mapping.
- BCET reconstructs both surface morphology and in-plane strain tensor fields by minimizing a loss function between experimental and simulated bend contours.
- The method was successfully applied to freestanding SrTiO$_3$ thin films, demonstrating high-fidelity reconstruction of local strain and curvature.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Freestanding thin films of quantum materials naturally develop sub-micrometer, nonuniform strain fields that strongly affect their electronic, magnetic, and structural properties in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium conditions. However, current methods to quantitatively resolve these mesoscopic features are primarily restricted to scanning probes, making it challenging for dynamical measurements such as single-shot imaging and femtosecond microscopy. Here, we present a new computational framework which we denote as bend contour electron tomography (BCET), which efficiently converts bend contours in transmission electron microscope images into quantitative two-dimensional maps of strain and topography. By iteratively minimizing a designed loss function between experimental and simulated bend contour images, BCET retrieves both surface morphology and in-plane strain tensor fields without requiring scanning or diffraction mapping. We applied BCET to freestanding SrTiO$_3$ thin films, demonstrating the successful reconstruction of the local strain distribution and curvature field with high fidelity. Our approach provides a quantitative framework for characterizing mesoscale structures in freestanding films using wide-field imaging, opening new avenues to investigate how spatial inhomogeneity governs phase transitions and nonequilibrium dynamics in two-dimensional quantum materials.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Physical Review Materials, 2026 · DOI ↗
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