  Numerous physical phase plates (PP) for phase-contrast enhancement in
transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been proposed and studied with the
hole-free or Volta PP having a high impact and interest in recent years. This
study is concerned with comparative TEM image simulations considering realistic
descriptions of various PP approaches and samples from three different fields
of application covering a large range of object sizes. The simulated images
provide an illustrative characterization of the typical image appearance and
common artifacts of the dfferent PPs and the influence of simulation parameters
especially important for PP simulations. A quantitative contrast analysis shows
the superior phase-shifting properties of the hole-free phase plate for
biological applications and the benefits of adjustable phase plates. The
application of PPs in high-resolution TEM imaging, especially of weak-phase
objects such as (atomically thin) 2D materials, is shown to increase image
interpretability. The software with graphical user interface written and used
for the presented simulations is available for free usage.
