Options for Energy-Loss Data Acquisition

Table F.1 summarizes some of the procedural choices involved in the recording of energy-loss data. As discussed on p. 291, there are several ways of using the information contained in inelastic scattering. An energy-loss spectrum provides much quantitative information, such as the local thickness (p. 293), chemical composition (p. 269, 324), and the crystallographic and electronic structure (Section 5.6) of a defined region of the specimen. Energy-filtered imaging is more useful for showing variations in thickness, composition or bonding, or simply for optimizing the contrast arising from structural features (Section 5.3). A spectrum image (p. 103) combines the spatial and energy-loss information and allows sophisticated procedures such as multivariate statistical analysis (p. 265) to be applied to previously acquired data. Energy-filtered diffraction can be useful for the quantitative interpretation of diffraction patterns (p. 317), for examining the directionality of chemical bonding (Fig. 3.60) or for finding out which scattering processes contribute to the energy-loss spectrum of a particular specimen (Section 3.3).