Abstract
X-ray absorption and optical luminescence can both provide valuable but very different information on the chemical and physical properties of materials. Although it is known that the spectral characteristics of many materials are highly heterogeneous on the micro- and/or nanoscale, no methodology has so far been shown to be capable of spatially resolving both full X-ray absorption and X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) spectra on the nanoscale in a correlative manner. For this purpose, the scanning transmission X-ray microscope at the HERMES beamline of the SOLEIL synchrotron was equipped with an optical detection system capable of recording high-resolution XEOL spectra using a 40 nm soft X-ray probe. The functionality of the system was demonstrated by analyzing ZnO powder dispersions - showing simultaneously the X-ray linear dichroism and XEOL behavior of individual submicrometric ZnO crystallites.
Highlights
X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) is a phenomenon that been known and used since the discovery of X-rays
To test whether the optical detection set-up was sensitive enough to detect the weak XEOL signal, point spectra were first recorded on the ZnO-W sample, with the X-ray beam tuned to 1050 eV
The considerable variation in the ratio of the two emission bands is in line with previous observations by Bertrand et al (2013) and makes for a suitable sample to demonstrate the ability of STXM-coupled XEOL to resolve emission contrast at the nanoscale
Summary
X-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) is a phenomenon that been known and used since the discovery of X-rays. Tuning the X-ray energy to diagnostic electronic core-level transitions, XEOL can be induced selectively on specific material phases (Hessel et al, 2008; Sham et al, 2004; Armelao et al, 2007; Kim et al, 2007; Wang et al, 2014a). The intensity of specific XEOL emission bands can be recorded as a function of the X-ray excitation energy, obtaining site-selective X-ray absorption spectra
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