Multislice theory of fast electron scattering incorporating atomic inner-shell ionization

It is demonstrated how atomic inner-shell ionization can be incorporated into a multislice theory of fast electron scattering. The resulting theory therefore accounts for both inelastic scattering due to inner-shell ionization and dynamical elastic scattering. The theory uses a description of the ionization process based on the angular momentum representation for both the initial and final states of the atomic electron. For energy losses near threshold, only a small number of independent states of the ejected atomic electron need to be considered, reducing demands on computing time, and eliminating the need for tabulated inelastic scattering factors. The theory is used to investigate the influence of the collection aperture size on the spatial origin of the silicon K-shell EELS signal generated by a STEM probe. The validity of a so-called local approximation is also considered. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.