In-situ, analytical, high-voltage and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy of Xe ion implantation into Al

An ion/HVEM system for in-situ, analytical, high-voltage and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with ion implantation was developed at National Research Institute for Metals (NRIM). The system consists of a 1000 keV HVEM and dual ion implanters of 200 and 30 keV. The 30–50 keV Xe ions were implanted into Al TEM specimens to a dose up to 2.6 × 10²¹ ions m⁻² at 300–473 K under and prior to HRTEM observation. The selective imaging of Xe atom colunms in off-axial condition clearly indicated the crystalline structure of Xe precipitates to be a truncated cuboctahedron facing {111} and {100} planes. Dynamic process of an atomic fluctuation of a Xe nanocrystal was observed in the nucleation stage under ion implantation. The precipitates grew up to about 30 nm when Xe ions were introduced at 473 K. Energy filtered images of Xe were successfully taken with Xe-M4.5 core loss electrons when the size of precipitates was larger than about 10 nm in diameter. An extra peak appearing at about 712 eV in the electron energy loss spectrum also indicated the crystallinity of Xe precipitates.