Electron diffraction using transmission electron microscopy

Electron diffraction via the transmission electron microscope is a powerful method for characterizing the structure of materials, including perfect crystals and defect structures. The advantages of electron diffraction over other methods, e. g., x-ray or neutron, arise from the extremely short wavelength ( approximate to2 pm), the strong atomic scattering, and the ability to examine tiny volumes of matter ( approximate to nm(3)). The NIST Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory has a history of discovery and characterization of new structures through electron diffraction, alone or in combination with other diffraction methods. This paper provides a survey of some of this work enabled through electron microscopy.