Honey, I Shrunk the Synchrotron: Electron Microscopy in Condensed Matter Physics

The new generation of monochromated aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes (MAC-STEMs) are now capable of rival the capabilities of synchrotrons and in many cases supersede them. The later is evident when exploring local emerging phenomena in materials with high spatial resolutions.

In this talk, I will present few examples of how we are utilizing the new MAC-STEMs to study the thermal, optical and electronic properties of materials. In the first example, I will present our efforts in study the optical response of aperiodic nano-fabricated structures that locally (~ 1000 nm) are the same but at larger scales are translational invariant. I will also show how we can reveal the spatial range of electron-optical coupling of moire potentials in twisted graphene multilayers. Finally, I will discuss our efforts in measuring the limits of thermal property measurements using electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) from cryogenic to room temperatures [1].