Information limit of 15 picometers achieved with bright-field ptychography

It is generally assumed that a high spatial resolution of a microscope requires a large numerical aperture of the imaging lens or detector. In this study, the information limit of 15 pm is achieved in transmission electron microscopy using only the bright-field disk (small numerical aperture) via multislice ptychography. The results indicate that high-frequency information has been encoded in the bright-field disk due to the multiple scattering of electrons in the objects, making it possible to break the diffraction limit of imaging via bright-field ptychography.