Many nanostructured materials are formed from powder precursors having ultra-fine particle sizes. Techniques of electron microscopy have proven invaluable for characterizing the structure of the precursor materials in order to better understand the fundamental processes that govern consolidation of the materials into the final nanophase structures. In recent years, the rapidly developing technique of electron holography has increasingly been applied for characterizing particle morphologies. The advent of the modern field emission microscope, which offers beam coherency sufficient to produce high contrast interference fringes for optimum hologram formation, and especially the availability of digital camera systems for hologram acquisition and rapid processing have both combined to bring electron holography to the forefront of techniques for characterization of nanostructured materials.

Electron holograms typically yield phase images that can give quantitative information on crystal morphologies, but much additional information can result from digital processing of holograms.