title: Advantages of a monochromator for bandgap measurements using electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
abstract: The practical advantages of a monochromator for electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in transmission electron microscopy are reviewed. The zero-loss peaks (ZLPs) of a monochromator and a cold field emission gun are compared in terms of bandgap measurement performance. The intensity of the ZLP tails at the bandgap energy is more important than the full-width at half maximum of the ZLP, and a monochromator is preferable to conventional electron sources. The silicon bandgap of 1.1eV is evaluated from the onset in the EEL spectrum obtained using the monochromator without a numerical procedure. We also show a high-speed instability-correction technique to realize the inherent energy resolution of the monochromator, in which instabilities of less than 335Hz are corrected using 512 EEL spectra obtained with an exposure time of 1.4ms. It will be useful in bandgap measurements and advanced studies for elucidating sub-eV EEL spectra.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Materials Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan. kimoto.koji@nims.go.jp <kimoto.koji@nims.go.jp>
authors.forename: Koji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kimoto
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kothleitner
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Grogger
authors.forename: Yoshio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Matsui
authors.forename: Ferdinand
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Hofer