Image blur and energy broadening effects in XPEEM

Andrea Locatelli; Tevfik Onur Menteş; Miguel Ángel Niño; Ernst Bauer

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.12.020

Image blur and energy broadening effects in XPEEM

Ultramicroscopy. 2011 Jul;111(8):1447-54. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.12.020. Epub 2010 Dec 29.

Authors

Andrea Locatelli¹, Tevfik Onur Menteş, Miguel Ángel Niño, Ernst Bauer

Affiliation

¹ Elettra - Sincrotrone Trieste S.C.p.A., 34149 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy. andrea.locatelli@elettra.trieste.it

PMID: 21232862
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2010.12.020

Abstract

We report image blurring and energy broadening effects in energy-filtered XPEEM when illuminating the specimen with soft X-rays at high flux densities. With a flux of 2 × 10(13)photons/s, the lateral resolution in XPEEM imaging with either core level or secondary electrons is degraded to more than 50 nm. Fermi level broadening up to several hundred meV and spectral shift to higher kinetic energies are also systematically observed. Simple considerations suggest that these artifacts result from Boersch and Loeffler effects, and that the electron-electron interactions are strongest in the initial part of the microscope optical path. Implications for aberration corrected instruments are discussed.