Aspects of transmission electron microscopy image processing of composites containing germanium and silicon nanocrystals

Improved visualization technique and analysis of the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images of the dielectric composite structures contained silicon and germanium crystalline nanoparticles have been performed. The modified algorithm of Wiener filtering and geometric phase processing taking into account the features of electron microscopy images both in direct and in reciprocal spaces linked by Fourier transform has been proposed and used effectively. In particular, it has been obtained counter plots of angular and spatial orientation of the nanocrystals, as well as has been measured their lateral dimensions for multilayer nanoperiodic SiOx/ZrO2 and Ge/SiO2 structures. In general, the color-layer representation of information on the electron microscopy images is a handy tool to show structure and interaction between individual structural phases of the advanced composite nanomaterials.