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arXiv · 2512.17252

Deep Learning Enabled Nanoscale X-ray Photoemission Electron Microscopy (nanoXPEEM)

Aashwin Mishra·Daniel Ratner·Quynh Nguyen
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Abstract

Understanding and manipulating two-dimensional materials for real-world applications remains challenging due to a lack of effective and high-throughput characterization techniques. Soft X-ray time-of-flight photoemission electron microscopy (XPEEM) provides element- and depth-sensitive information of materials and buried interfaces. However, chromatic and spherical aberrations cannot be corrected with electron-lens combinations. These aberrations, combined with astigmatism and space-charge effects, significantly degrade the spatial and energy resolutions. To overcome this limitation, we outline a spatial-attention based deep learning approach to automatically correct for these effects and attain nanometer resolution over the entire field-of-view (FoV). The combination of this corrective algorithm with XPEEM, termed as nanoXPEEM, establishes a new record of 48-nm spatial resolution with a 232-micrometer diameter FoV in the soft x-ray regime (700-1000 eV). nanoXPEEM provides unique spatial mapping of the element-specificity, depth-sensitivity, and local structure on the nanoscale. It can bridge the current gap to achieve angstrom (atomic) scale resolution.

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Aashwin Mishra, Daniel Ratner, Quynh Nguyen. 2025-12-19. Deep Learning Enabled Nanoscale X-ray Photoemission Electron Microscopy (nanoXPEEM). https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.17252

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