We present a theory and a simulation of thermal diffuse scattering due to the excitation of magnons in scanning transmission electron microscopy. The calculations indicate that magnons can present atomic contrast when detected by electron energy-loss spectroscopy using atomic-size electron beams. The results presented here indicate that the intensity of the magnon diffuse scattering in bcc iron at 300~K is 4 orders of magnitude weaker than the intensity of thermal diffuse scattering arising from atomic vibrations. In an energy range where the phonon and magnon dispersions do not overlap, a monochromated scanning transmission electron microscope equipped with direct electron detectors for spectroscopy is expected to resolve the magnon spectral signatures.
@article{arxiv.2105.04467,
title = {Magnon diffuse scattering in scanning transmission electron microscopy},
author = {Keenan Lyon and Anders Bergman and Paul Zeiger and Demie Kepaptsoglou and Quentin M. Ramasse and Juan Carlos Idrobo and Ján Rusz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.04467},
year = {2021}
}