We present a gradient-descent-based approach to determining the projected electrostatic potential from four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy measurements of a periodic, crystalline material even when dynamical scattering occurs. The method solves for the scattering matrix as an intermediate step, but overcomes the so-called truncation problem that limited previous scattering-matrix-based projected structure determination methods. Gradient descent is made efficient by using analytic expressions for the gradients. Through simulated case studies, we show that iteratively improving the scattering matrix determination can significantly improve the accuracy of the projected structure determination.
Keywords: dynamical scattering; four-dimensional STEM; gradient descent; phase retrieval; projected structure determination; scattering matrix.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America.