Study of electrostatic fields by electron holography

The development of the field emission transmission electron microscope has resulted in electron holography becoming a practical reality for imaging and analyzing materials. The major advantage of this technique over the conventional TEM techniques is that it allows for the imaging of both amplitude and phase which means that it is possible to image pure phase objects such as magnetic and electrostatic fields. This thesis is devoted to the study of the technique of holography and use it in the imaging electrostatic fields due to the charging of latex spheres under the electron beam in the transmission electron microscope. It was found that the imaging of electrostatic fields is possible making this a viable technique. The fields around charged particles were also modelled and this was found to be in conjunction with the experiment. It was determined that with the current degree of sophistication, this technique can be used to detect fields generated by single electron sized charges which should make it very useful in the observation of quantum wells and other nanostructural devices.