Measurement of Debye–Waller factors by electron precession

The electron precession technique was developed for the ab initio structure determination of unknown phases. However, in this paper we have explored the possibility of using precession to determine accurate values of the Debye–Waller factor. As a test of the technique, silicon, diamond and chromium were studied and the results obtained compared with known values determined from other techniques. The agreement was found to be excellent. The accuracy and simplicity of the technique makes it suited to many situations where the Debye–Waller factor needs to be known accurately and with sub-micron spatial resolution.