Detection of iron-oxide layer on the surface of iron nitride using high-resolution electron microscopy and Fourier filtering

High-resolution electro microscopy (HREM) was use to detect the surface Fe3O4 iron-oxide layer formed on [011] Fe4N iron nitride due to electron irradiation in the transmission electron microscope. The existence of a surface oxide layer was confirmed by both image processing and through-focus observation. Images of the iron oxide were revealed using the process of last Fourier transformation (FFT) of experimental HREM images, filtering of the FFT patterns and inverse FFT. By through-focus observation, HREM images of iron oxide were obtained based on the tuning of contrast transfer function. Fourier filtering is effective for examining the beginning of phase transformation, because at this stage the diffraction spots of iron oxide are too weak to be detected. At the time when the iron oxide layer has developed to some extent, through-focus observation is useful to obtain an image of oxide layers.