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New pathways for improved quantification of energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectra of semiconductors with multiple X‐ray lines from thin foils investigated in transmission electron microscopy
Author(s) -
PARRI M.C.,
QIU Y.,
WALTHER T.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/jmi.12345
Subject(s) - transmission electron microscopy , foil method , x ray , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , spectral line , absorption (acoustics) , absorption spectroscopy , calibration curve , semiconductor , calibration , thin film , spectroscopy , x ray spectroscopy , x ray absorption spectroscopy , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , scanning transmission electron microscopy , optics , chemistry , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , physics , nuclear magnetic resonance , chromatography , quantum mechanics , astronomy , composite material , detection limit
Summary Theoretical approaches to quantify the chemical composition of bulk and thin‐layer specimens using energy‐dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope are compared to experiments investigating (In)GaAs and Si(Ge) semiconductors. Absorption correctors can be improved by varying the take‐off angle to determine the depth of features within the foil or the samples thickness, or by definition of effective k ‐factors that can be obtained from plots of k ‐factors versus foil thickness or, preferably, versus the K/L intensity ratio for a suitable element. The latter procedure yields plots of self‐consistent absorption corrections that can be used to determine the chemical composition, iteratively for SiGe using a set of calibration curves or directly from a single calibration curve for InGaAs, for single X‐ray spectra without knowledge of sample thickness, density or mass absorption coefficients.