Localization of high-energy electron scattering from atomic vibrations

Electrons with kinetic energies ~100 keV are potentially capable of exciting atomic vibrational states from a distance of microns. Despite such a large interaction distance, our detailed calculations show that the scattering physics permits a high-energy electron beam in a scanning transmission electron microscope to locate vibrational excitations with atomic-scale spatial resolution. Attempts to realize this capability experimentally could potentially benefit numerous fields across the physical sciences.