Electron Ptychography

Electron ptychography describes a family of algorithms which are used to enable the reconstruction of complex specimen transmission functions of a sample in order to obtain both phase and amplitude information, as applied within the realms of electron microscopy. Ptychographic methods can be very useful in the imaging of beam sensitive materials, samples with both strongly- and weakly-scattering elements, and for mapping the functional properties of materials. Ptychography can further be used to achieve image resolutions far beyond the conventional resolution limit defined by the imaging aperture size. In this article, we review the development of ptychography and compare presently available methods to perform ptychographic image reconstruction on data collected in the (scanning) (transmission) electron microscope. We aim to enable the reader to determine optimal data collection parameters, and the most suitable ptychographic method for the information they seek to determine from their sample.