Stéphanie Kodjikian specialized in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and crystallography during her doctoral work on superconducting oxides (Crystallography Laboratory, CNRS Grenoble). She then broadened her skills to metallurgy (CEA Grenoble) and to biology (University of Poitiers), before joining the Laboratory of Oxides and Fluorides (Le Mans University).
In 2011, she joined the Néel Institute (CNRS Grenoble) to take responsibility for the TEM activity, and carry out structural or microstructural studies to understand the origin of specific properties in materials science. She specialized in electron crystallography, particularly in low-dose 3D electron diffraction methods.
Since January 2023, she has led the “optics and microscopy” technical team at the Néel Institute.
Transmission electron microscopy in materials science: advances in electron crystallography
Transmission electron microscopy has long occupied a place of choice in the study of new materials, because its possibilities for multi-scale characterization are often essential for the detailed understanding of a sample.
In recent decades, the field of application of transmission electron microscopy has further increased thanks to crucial technical advances, both in the performance of microscopes (e.g. spherical aberration correctors, pixelated detectors, beam precession, cryogenics, specific sample holders) as well as in sample preparation techniques (e.g. Focused Ion Beam, cryogenics). New characterizations are now possible: studies of structural properties up to the Angstrom scale including on sensitive samples, chemical mapping at the atomic scale including for light elements, measurements of physical properties on nanometric samples, etc…
The first part of the presentation will consist of a non-exhaustive review of the possibilities offered by transmission electron microscopy in materials science; the second part will be devoted to 3D electron diffraction methods for structure solution and refinement, particularly applied to materials sensitive to the electron beam.
