Recent advances in Lorentz microscopy

•we review the state-of-the-art in Lorentz transmission electron microscopy.•We describe the latest improvements in experimental and in-situ techniques.•We highlight recent work in the are of magnetic phase reconstruction.•We discuss improvements in Lorentz spatial resolution down to one nanometer.•We describe the emerging area of vector field electron tomography.

Lorentz transmission electron microscopy (LTEM) has evolved from a qualitative magnetic domain observation technique to a quantitative technique for the determination of the magnetization state of a sample. In this review article, we describe recent developments in techniques and imaging modes, including the use of spherical aberration correction to improve the spatial resolution of LTEM into the single nanometer range, and novel in situ observation modes. We review recent advances in the modeling of the wave optical magnetic phase shift as well as in the area of phase reconstruction by means of the Transport of Intensity Equation (TIE) approach, and discuss vector field electron tomography, which has emerged as a powerful tool for the 3D reconstruction of magnetization configurations. We conclude this review with a brief overview of recent LTEM applications.