Influence of zero-loss filtering on electron optical phase contrast

Complex scattering amplitudes are used to calculate the phase contrast of colloidal gold particles. Comparison of measurements of the phase contrast intensity at the centre of the gold particle as a function of defocus for unfiltered and zero-loss filtered images demonstrates the increase in phase contrast achieved by zero-loss filtering even for a thick carbon substrate film. The granulation of amorphous germanium films is measured by the spatial rms (root mean square) values of image intensity in a defocus series.