Improving the reliability of the background extrapolation in transmission electron microscopy elemental maps by using three pre-edge windows

Abstract

Over the last decades, elemental maps have become a powerful tool for the analysis of the spatial distribution of the elements within specimen. In energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM) one commonly uses two pre-edge and one post-edge image for the calculation of elemental maps. However, this so called three-window method can introduce serious errors into the extrapolated background for the post-edge window. Since this method uses only two pre-edge windows as data points to calculate a background model that depends on two fit parameters, the quality of the extrapolation can be estimated only statistically assuming that the background model is correct. In this paper, we will discuss a possibility to improve the accuracy and reliability of the background extrapolation by using a third pre-edge window. Since with three data points the extrapolation becomes over-determined, this change permits us to estimate not only the statistical uncertainly of the fit, but also the systematic error by using the experimental data. Furthermore we will discuss in this paper the acquisition parameters that should be used for the energy windows to reach an optimal signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the elemental maps.