Probing non-dipole allowed excitations in highly correlated materials with nanoscale resolution.
Here, we demonstrate that non-dipole allowed d-d excitations in NiO can be measured by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) in transmission electron microscopes (TEM). Strong excitations from (3)A(2g) ground states to (3)T(1g) excited states are measured at 1.7 and 3 eV when transferred momentum are beyond 1.5 A(-1). We show that these d-d excitations can be collected with a nanometrical resolution in a dedicated scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) by setting a good compromise between the convergence angle of the electron probe and the collected transferred momentum. This work opens new possibilities for the study of strongly correlated materials on a nanoscale.
Gloter
Alexandre
A
Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS UMR 8502, Université Paris Sud, F-91405 Orsay, France. gloter@lps.u-psud.fr
Chu
Ming-Wen
MW
Kociak
Mathieu
M
Chen
Cheng Hsuan
CH
Colliex
Christian
C