Extending the limit of atomic level grain boundary structure imaging using high-resolution electron microscopy.

It has been possible to image sigma = 21/[111]21.8 degrees tilt boundaries in thin Au films and to deduce their atomic arrangements. These results represent an electron microscopic resolution level of 1.43 A, attainable with a small amount of image processing, which produces interpretable structure images. This substantial improvement over other recent grain boundary studies, which required about 1.9-2.0 A resolution, clearly demonstrates that many more tilt grain boundary orientations are now accessible instead of a limited subset.