Abstract

Over the past 15 years or so, materials-based electron tomography has evolved from a niche technique to one that is almost routine and practised by most high-end electron microscopy labs. In this presentation I will consider the progress made in that time, focussing on the development of STEM based electron tomography, firstly in terms of the use and application of HAADF 3D imaging and then to describe how this mode of tomography can be combined with EDX and EELS microanalysis and electron diffraction to enable the mapping of not just morphology but composition, optical and electronic properties and the local crystallography in 3D. I will also consider how in recent years the reconstruction fidelity has improved greatly with the introduction of compressed sensing techniques that make use of prior information about the object being reconstructed. I will end with a short discussion about how we might reduce the time and/or dose needed for tomography so as to maximise the information content from the data acquired.