From electron energy-loss spectroscopy to multi-dimensional and multi-signal electron microscopy

This review intends to illustrate how electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) techniques in the electron microscope column have evolved over the past 60 years. Beginning as a physicist tool to measure basic excitations in solid thin foils, EELS techniques have gradually become essential for analytical purposes, nowadays pushed to the identification of individual atoms and their bonding states. The intimate combination of highly performing techniques with quite efficient computational tools for data processing and ab initio modeling has opened the way to a broad range of novel imaging modes with potential impact on many different fields. The combination of Angstrom-level spatial resolution with an energy resolution down to a few tenths of an electron volt in the core-loss spectral domain has paved the way to atomic-resolved elemental and bonding maps across interfaces and nanostructures. In the low-energy range, improved energy resolution has been quite efficient in recording surface plasmon maps and from them electromagnetic maps across the visible electron microscopy (EM) domain, thus bringing a new view to nanophotonics studies. Recently, spectrum imaging of the emitted photons under the primary electron beam and the spectacular introduction of time-resolved techniques down to the femtosecond time domain, have become innovative keys for the development and use of a brand new multi-dimensional and multi-signal electron microscopy.