Effect of sample bending on diffracted intensities observed in CBED patterns of plan view strained samples

Convergent beam electron diffraction is used to study the effect of the sample bending on diffracted intensities as observed in transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Studied samples are made of thin strained semiconductor Ga1−xInxAs epitaxial layers grown on a GaAs substrate and observed in plan view. Strong variations of the diffracted intensities are observed depending on the thinning process used for TEM foil preparation. For chemically thinned samples, strong bending of the substrate occurs, inducing modifications of both kinematical and dynamical Bragg lines. For mechanically thinned samples, bending of the substrate is negligible. Kinematical lines are unaffected whereas dynamical lines have slightly asymmetric intensities. We analyse these effects using finite element modelling to calculate the sample strain coupled with dynamical multibeam simulations for calculating the diffracted intensities. Our results correctly reproduce the qualitative features of experimental patterns, clearly demonstrating that inhomogeneous displacement fields along the electron beam within the substrate are responsible for the observed intensity modifications.