TEM Analysis Of Advanced Devices For Electronics Or Spintronics: From Structure To Properties

During the last decades, transmission electron microscopy has become an essential tool for solving problems involving microstructural questions in materials science. Its unique ability to provide direct imaging of particular regions of the material together with structural information made it highly valuable in the study of complex materials including domains as ferroelastic or ferroelectric materials. Moreover, TEM is the dedicated technique for studying defects (dislocations, boundaries, precipitates, interfaces) which can either affect or enhance the desired properties (mechanical, optical or magnetic properties, transport). After a brief review of typical answers given by TEM on materials questions, we discuss the interest of the technique to investigate new devices for energy, communication or security applications. We show in particular that new developments in TEM now allow us to determine various fields in the specimens, in particular strain or magnetic fields, which bring direct information on the physical properties.