Electron microscopy of crystals with time-dependent perturbations

The electron microscope image intensity of a thin crystal is described as a time average of the image of a crystal perturbed by time-dependent fluctuations corresponding to thermal motion of the atoms or low-energy electronic excitations. For very thin crystals the phase-object approximation indicates that images having atomic resolution may be obtained from the inelastically scattered electrons. It is shown that the use of suitable approximations allows estimates to be made of the contribution of the inelastically scattered electrons to the high-resolution images of thicker crystals. The resolution of images formed by inelastically scattered electrons is not affected by the non-localization of the inelastic scattering process.