Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy in the Electron Microscope

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS or ELS) has been used to investi- gate the physical properties of solids for over 40 years in a handful of laboratories distributed around the world.

More recently, electron micro- scopists have become interested in EELS as a method of chemical analysis with the potential for achieving very high sensitivity and spatial resolution, and there is a growing awareness of the fact that the loss spectrum can provide structural information from a thin specimen.

In comparison with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, for example, EELS is a fairly demand- ing technique, requiring for its full exploitation a knowledge of atomic and solid-state physics, electron optics, and electronics.

In writing this book, I have tried to gather together relevant information from these various fields.

Chapter 1 begins at an elementary level; readers with some experience in EELS will be familiar with the content of the first two sections.

Chapter 2 deals with instrumentation and experimental technique, and should con- tain material of interest to researchers who want to get the best performance out of commercial equipment as well as those who contemplate building their own spectrometer or electron-detection system.

Chapter 3 outlines the theory used to interpret spectral features, while Chapter 4 gives procedures for numerical processing of the energy-loss spectrum.

Chapter 5 contains examples of practical applications of EELS and a discussion of radiation damage, spatial resolution, and detection limits.