Assessing phase discrimination via the segmentation of an elemental energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy map: a case study of Bi2Te3 and Bi2Te2S

J B Byrnes; A A Gazder; S Aminorroaya Yamini

doi:10.1039/c7ra08594j

Assessing phase discrimination via the segmentation of an elemental energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy map: a case study of Bi₂Te₃ and Bi₂Te₂S

RSC Adv. 2018 Feb 15;8(14):7457-7464. doi: 10.1039/c7ra08594j. eCollection 2018 Feb 14.

Authors

J B Byrnes¹, A A Gazder², S Aminorroaya Yamini^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Superconducting and Electronic Materials, University of Wollongong New South Wales 2500 Australia.
² Electron Microscopy Centre, University of Wollongong New South Wales 2500 Australia.
³ Department of Engineering and Mathematics, Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield S1 1WB UK S.Aminorroaya@shu.ac.uk.

Abstract

The present case study critically assesses the efficacy of a previously proposed segmentation methodology as a means to discriminate phases via post-processing the image of an elemental map. In the Bi₂Te_2.5S_0.5 multiphase compound, the reference spectra of the Bi₂Te₃ and Bi₂Te₂S phases are distinct enough to effectively distinguish two phases during map acquisition. Since the counts of the sulphur-K peak in the X-ray emission data are significantly higher for Bi₂Te₂S compared to Bi₂Te₃, the segmentation methodology exploits this variation and enables successful phase discrimination via post-processing the image of the elemental map.