Abstract
The influence of the surface-affected layer formed by mechanical polishing of a metal single crystal specimen on fluorescence X-ray holography was investigated. When an affected layer remains on the surface of the single crystal, the intensity of the fluorescence X-ray emitted from the specimen decreases due to absorption of the incident X-ray by the affected layer. Furthermore, the intensity of the high-quality hologram generated in the undistorted lattice region beneath the affected layer also decreases while passing through the affected layer before exiting the specimen. These effects caused by the affected layer obscure the standing waves used to determine the crystal orientation in the holograms, and strong artifact images are observed in the reconstructed atomic images. By removing the affected layer through sufficiently long electropolishing, high-quality reconstructed atomic images with reduced artifact intensity can be obtained.
