Simultaneous multi-region background subtraction for core-level EEL spectra

Jacob T Held; Hwanhui Yun; K Andre Mkhoyan

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2019.112919

Simultaneous multi-region background subtraction for core-level EEL spectra

Ultramicroscopy. 2020 Mar:210:112919. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2019.112919. Epub 2019 Dec 14.

Authors

Jacob T Held¹, Hwanhui Yun², K Andre Mkhoyan³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States. Electronic address: heldx123@umn.edu.
² Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States. Electronic address: mkhoyan@umn.edu.

PMID: 31911393
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2019.112919

Abstract

We present a multi-region extension of power law background subtraction for core-level EEL spectra to improve the robustness of background removal. This method takes advantage of the post-edge shape of core-loss EEL edges to enable simultaneous fitting of pre- and post-edge background regions. This method also produces simultaneous and consistent background removal from multiple edges in a single EEL spectrum. The stability of this method with respect to the fitting energy window and the EELS signal to noise ratio is also discussed.

Keywords: Background; Core-Level; EELS; Fitting; STEM.