From nanobeam to ptychography: 4D-STEM data acquisition, processing, and interpretation¶
Scientific Organisers
Ian MacLaren University of Glasgow
Stephanie Ribet Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Colin Ophus Stanford University
Companion site for the pre-congress workshop at IMC21, Sunday, August 30, 2026, University of Liverpool, UK. This site collects the agenda, teaching material for each module, hands-on Google Colab tutorials, and references for further reading.
What this workshop covers¶
4D-STEM is transforming imaging in scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), offering far greater flexibility in extracting structural and phase information than conventional STEM. This workshop will introduce core principles of data acquisition and detectors, then focus on practical 4D-STEM workflows for data processing and interpretation, including machine-learning-enabled methods.
Nanobeam 4DSTEM applications with well-separated diffraction discs at low STEM probe convergence angles, including crystal phase, orientation, and strain mapping.
Diffractive Imaging at Atomic Resolution, where overlapping discs enable direct and iterative phase-retrieval approaches such as ptychography.
Most of the workshop will be hands-on, using interactive processing notebooks with experimental datasets. Attendees are strongly encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet to follow along with the online tools.
Use the sidebar (or the agenda) to jump to the module pages. Each has teaching notes, the hands-on Colab tutorial, and references for further reading.
Location¶
The workshop is held on the University of Liverpool campus, not at the ACC Liverpool congress venue:
Theatre 6, PC Suite, Rendall Building, Bedford Street South, Liverpool, L69 7ZQ, United Kingdom
📍 what3words:
///sounds.moth.oiled🏛️ University of Liverpool campus map (PDF): the Rendall Building is building 432, grid reference D3