Fine structure EELS analysis of glasses and glass composites

EELS is a powerful technique for the study of complex oxide ceramics, especially when exploiting the ELNES sensitivity to cation valency and coordination. The same applies for oxide glasses, with the additional benefit of gaining information about glass order parameters and structural units. The major benefit of ELNES in comparison to Raman, NMR and X-ray alternatives is the high resolution of measurement which makes it particularly suitable for nanocomposites. For doped glasses with some of the extra cations exceeding the solubility limit, we have also analysed the systematic change of oxidation state in transit from the glass matrix into precipitates using the example of CeO2 and the Ce-M-edge pair of spin-orbit split lines.