CHOICE OF OPERATING PARAMETERS FOR MICROANALYSIS BY ELECTRON ENERGY-LOSS SPECTROSCOPY

In electron energy-loss spectroscopy it is important to be able to maximize the ratio of the number of counts, P, in a characteristic edge to the statistical noise of the background, √B. The variation of P/√B for a variety of elements has been examined as a function of 2β, the electron scattering angle accepted by the spectrometer and Δ, the energy range over which the integration is performed. A broad maximum in P/√B for each element was found for β of the order of Ek/2E0 (where Ek is the energy of the edge, e0 the energy of the incident beam) and for Δ greater than 0.15 Ek. © 1978 North-Holland Publishing Company.