In situ scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) through liquids is a promising approach for exploring biological and materials processes. However, options for in situ chemical identification are limited: X-ray analysis is precluded because the liquid cell holder shadows the detector and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) is degraded by multiple scattering events in thick layers. ...

Light elements such as alkali metal (lithium, sodium) or halogen (fluorine, chlorine) are present in various substances and indeed play significant roles in our life. Although atomic behaviours of these elements are often a key to resolve chemical or biological activities, they are hardly visible in transmission electron microscope because of their smaller scattering power and higher knock-on p...

Several basic physical concepts of applying eq. Ik = I sigma Nxt to surface microanalysis by reflection electron energy-loss spectroscopy (REELS) are clarified. Here Ik and I are the integrated intensities of the core ionization edge and the low loss part, sigma is the scattering cross section of element x with atomic concentration Nx, and t is the specimen thickness. The reflected inelastic el...

We discuss several ways of using Fourier-ratio deconvolution to process low-loss spectra. They include removal of the tail arising from the zero-loss peak, extraction of the spectrum of a particle from data recorded from the particle on a substrate, separation of the bulk and surface components in spectra recorded from samples of the same composition but different thickness, and investigation o...

We present first-principles electron energy-loss near-edge structure calculations that incorporate electron-hole interactions and are in excellent agreement with experimental data obtained with X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS). The superior energy resolution in XAS spectra and the new calculations make a compelling case that core-hole effects domi...

The high beam current and subangstrom resolution of aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes has enabled electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) mapping with atomic resolution. These spectral maps are often dose limited and spatially oversampled, leading to low counts/channel and are thus highly sensitive to errors in background estimation. However, by taking advantage o...

We demonstrate the ability to apply electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) to follow the chemistry and oxidation states of LiMn2O4 and Li4Ti5O12 battery electrodes within a battery solvent. This is significant as the use and importance of in situ electrochemical cells coupled with a scanning/transmission electron microscope (S/TEM) has expanded and been applied to follow changes in battery ch...

Within the MNPBEM toolbox, we show how to simulate electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) of plasmonic nanoparticles using a boundary element method approach. The methodology underlying our approach closely follows the concepts developed by Garćıa de Abajo and coworkers [for a review see Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 209 (2010)]. We introduce two classes eelsret and eelsstat that allow in combination w...

Signatures of the exciton coherence size, which controls the nonlinear optical response and luminescence of conjugated systems, in the electronic dynamic structure factor S(q,omega) are calculated. We find that for small molecules the momentum dependence of the lowest exciton resonance is purely geometric, reflecting the molecular size rather than a universal exciton size, as suggested recently...

A detailed analysis of the plasmonic excitations within a nanopatterned gold chiral biosensor element, measured by scanning transmission electron microscopy electron energy loss spectroscopy, is presented. We discuss aspects of data acquisition, processing, analysis and simulation. The localised surface plasmonic resonance modes in the structure are extracted using non-negative matrix factorisa...