Correlation Between Dopant Atom Evaporation Field and Measured Site Preference in Atom Probe Tomography
Abstract
Complex oxides possess a wide range of electric, magnetic, and optical properties that can be precisely tuned by chemical doping. The atomic-scale analysis of the property-controlling dopants, however, becomes increasingly difficult towards low doping levels. Atom probe tomography (APT) offers chemical sensitivity and spatial resolution to image individual dopant atoms down to a few parts per million. To reliably extract such information, detailed knowledge about the atom-specific field evaporation processes is required. Here we demonstrate a first insight into the APT-measured atomic position of dopant atoms and the field evaporation conditions, using Zr-doped ErMnO3 as a model system. Our analysis reveals a substantial preferential retention of both matrix and dopant atoms which strongly affects the dopant site determination and can lead to an incorrect interpretation. The retention effect is determined by intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, such as the dopant's evaporation field and concentration and the analysis temperature, respectively, as we explain based on field-evaporation simulations. Our results are important for the APT-based analysis of individual dopant atoms in solid systems and the understanding of field evaporation dynamics at the atomic level in general.
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BibTeX
@misc{hunnestad2026correlation,
title = {{Correlation Between Dopant Atom Evaporation Field and Measured Site Preference in Atom Probe Tomography}},
author = {Kasper A. Hunnestad and Constantinos Hatzoglou and Frida H. Danmo and Zewu Yan and Edith Bourret and Francois Vurpillot and Antonius T. J. van Helvoort and Sverre Selbach and Dennis Meier},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.34008},
eprint = {2609.34008},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.34008},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Correlation Between Dopant Atom Evaporation Field and Measured Site Preference in Atom Probe Tomography
AU - Kasper A. Hunnestad
AU - Constantinos Hatzoglou
AU - Frida H. Danmo
AU - Zewu Yan
AU - Edith Bourret
AU - Francois Vurpillot
AU - Antonius T. J. van Helvoort
AU - Sverre Selbach
AU - Dennis Meier
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.34008
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.34008
AB - Complex oxides possess a wide range of electric, magnetic, and optical properties that can be precisely tuned by chemical doping. The atomic-scale analysis of the property-controlling dopants, however, becomes increasingly difficult towards low doping levels. Atom probe tomography (APT) offers chemical sensitivity and spatial resolution to image individual dopant atoms down to a few parts per million. To reliably extract such information, detailed knowledge about the atom-specific field evaporation processes is required. Here we demonstrate a first insight into the APT-measured atomic position of dopant atoms and the field evaporation conditions, using Zr-doped ErMnO3 as a model system. Our analysis reveals a substantial preferential retention of both matrix and dopant atoms which strongly affects the dopant site determination and can lead to an incorrect interpretation. The retention effect is determined by intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, such as the dopant's evaporation field and concentration and the analysis temperature, respectively, as we explain based on field-evaporation simulations. Our results are important for the APT-based analysis of individual dopant atoms in solid systems and the understanding of field evaporation dynamics at the atomic level in general.
ER -