Observation of Atomic Steps by Reflection Electron Holography

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Abstract
Reflection electron holography has been carried out successfully for the first time. Two regions in a reflection electron image of a Pt(111) surface at glancing angle incidence are overlapped by means of an electron biprism to form an off-axis electron hologram. The optically reconstructed interferogram displays the phase distribution of the diffracted electron wave which reflects surface topography. This method has been proved to have high sensitivity of the order of 0.01 nm for quantitatively measuring surface undulation by observing mono-atomic-height surface steps.