Charge defects glowing in the dark

We investigate the effects of local charge defects in HREM imaging, using electron densities calculated by density functional methods. As a model of a planar interface with a local charge defect we use the polar MgO (1 1 1)−3×3R30° surface, which has an additional hole per surface unit cell. A complimentary example, the non-polar MgO (1 0 0) surface that has no local charge defect is simulated for comparison. We show that the contrast due to local charge defects is rather high, and suggest that they should be directly observable.