Poster Presentation 24th Australian Conference on Microscopy and Microanalysis 2016

CrysTBox – a set of tools not only for transmission electron microscopists (#239)

Miloslav Klinger 1
  1. Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

CrysTBox, a set of software tools for material characterization, crystallographic calculations and visualization is presented. It consists of three tools: diffractGUI providing automated analysis of spot/disc electron diffraction patterns, ringGUI offering automated evaluation of ring diffraction images and cellViewer allowing for crystallographic visualization and calculations.

The analytical tools, diffractGUI and ringGUI, employ methods of artificial intelligence and computer vision to achieve precise results in an expeditious and robust way1,2. DiffractGUI can process a variety of input images: selected area electron diffraction (SAED), convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED), nanodiffraction or high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) images. In several tens of seconds, it measures interplanar distances and angles, assigns crystallographic indices to the depicted diffraction spots and determines the sample orientation. Ring diffraction patterns are analyzed using ringGUI. It detects individual rings and identifies corresponding crystallographic planes. Camera length calibration inaccuracy can be automatically determined. Although the tools are designed to be fully automatic, their graphical user interface provides the user with partial and final results and allows intervention if needed. CellViewer offers an interactive and intuitive view on the crystalline material in the direct space (via unit cell), reciprocal space (simulated spot diffraction), stereographic projection and inverse pole figure. All the views are interconnected so the user's action in one view is immediately reflected in another. CellViewer can also visualize the results of diffractGUI. After processing the experimental spot diffraction pattern in diffractGUI, cellViewer can display an interactive theoretical pattern and unit cell oriented in accordance with the experimental image. DigitalMicrograph plug-in allows the CrysTBox integration in the microscope computer.

CrysTBox can save lot of time and effort while preserving or even improving the analysis' precision1. Its speed, automacy and repeatability facilitates the analyses which are hardly feasible with manual evaluation. Further details can be found at www.fzu.cz/crystbox.

  1. M. Klinger and A. Jäger. Crystallographic Tool Box (CrysTBox): Automated tools for transmission electron microscopists and crystallographers. Journal of Applied Crystallography, 48(6), 2015.
  2. M. Klinger, M. Němec, L. Polívka, V. Gärtnerová, and A. Jäger. Automated CBED processing: Sample thickness estimation based on analysis of zone-axis CBED pattern. Ultramicroscopy, 150(0):88-95, 2015.