Exit-wave phase retrieval from a single high-resolution transmission electron microscopy image of a weak-phase object

Abstract We propose a novel algorithm to numerically retrieve the phase of the exit-wave function from a high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) image of a weak-phase object material, e.g., graphene and hexagonal boron nitride monolayers. It theoretically only requires a single HRTEM image to retrieve the phase under the assumption of a weak-phase object. In addition, it can remove the effects of geometrical aberrations up to fifth order, and also improve the degraded information due to the finite temporal and spatial coherence. We further present its applications and successfully demonstrate the identification of the lattice atoms and line defects in single HRTEM image of graphene.