EELS of Silicon

EELS from an amorphous area (silicon rich area)
(Spectrum is background stripped, reference area for calculation was chosen between 450eV and 530eV, beyond the oxygen K-ionisation edge)

Silicon detection in an algal cell by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS)

Mapping overlapping edges using MLLS fitting. The data was acquired by EELS-SI from an etched semi-conductor device (left). The Al K, Si K and W M edges all overlap, prohibiting conventional background extrapolation (centre). Using MLLS fitting,with reference edges extracted from the data-set itself, the signals can be separated without overlap artefacts (right). The MLLS routine can even provide individual maps for the individual Si phases.

Reference: Compositional analysis of ultrathin silicon oxynitride gate dielectrics by quantitative electron energy loss spectroscopy, Heiko Stegmann and Ehrenfried Zschech, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS VOLUME 83, NUMBER 24, 5017 (2003).

The Si L_2,3 core-loss edge can be used to probe the crystal chemistry around Si, providing information on the s- and d-like partial density of unoccupied states of the Si-O bonds. 

Shift of ionization edge:

In comparison with a bulk Si, this Si edge of GeSi is shifted more than 1 eV towards higher energies and has a different shape.

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