Influence of Precession Electron Diffraction Parameters and Energy Filtering on Reduced Density Function Analysis of Thin Amorphous Silica Films—Implications for Structural Studies

We investigated the influence of precession angle, energy filtering and sample thickness on the structural parameters of amorphous SiO<sub>2</sub> thin films from the electron reduced density functions obtained by applying precession electron diffraction. The results demonstrate that the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yu-Jen Chou, Konstantin B. Borisenko, Partha Pratim Das, Stavros Nicolopoulos, Mauro Gemmi, Angus I. Kirkland
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-06-01
Series:Symmetry
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/15/7/1291
Description
Summary:We investigated the influence of precession angle, energy filtering and sample thickness on the structural parameters of amorphous SiO<sub>2</sub> thin films from the electron reduced density functions obtained by applying precession electron diffraction. The results demonstrate that the peak positions in the electron reduced density functions are generally insensitive to the studied experimental conditions, while both precession angle and energy filtering influence peak heights considerably. It is also shown that introducing precession with small angles of up to 2 degrees and energy filtering results in higher coordination numbers that are closer to the expected theoretical values of 4 and 2 for Si and O, respectively, for data obtained from a thicker sample.
ISSN:2073-8994