Scanning transmission electron microscopy image simulations of complex dislocation structures generated by discrete dislocation dynamics

•Materials models have been coupled with dynamical diffraction simulations.•STEM images have been simulated for complex dislocation configurations.•Simulated Weak-Beam Dark Field STEM images are presented.•Simulated images of complex dislocation networks are shown. Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Diffraction Contrast Imaging (STEM-DCI) has been gaining popularity for the identification and analysis of dislocations in crystalline materials due to its ability to supress undesirable image features that are often present in conventional TEM images. However, there does not yet exist a robust body of work demonstrating expected contrast in these imaging conditions. A novel approach for the simulation of STEM-DCI images was developed using a modified form of the scattering matrix formalism. This algorithm was used to simulate a variety of dislocation configurations generated using three-dimensional discrete dislocation dynamics.