Development of an energy dispersive spectrometer for a transmission electron microscope utilizing a TES microcalorimeter array

Abstract

A high‐energy‐resolution energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) utilizing a TES (transition edge sensor) microcalorimeter array is developed for a transmission electron microscope (TEM). The goals of the development are (1) an energy range of 0.3–10 keV, (2) an energy resolution of FWHM <10 eV, (3) a maximum counting rate of 3 kcps, and (4) a cryogen‐free cooling system. We adopted a dilution refrigerator (DR) pre‐cooled by a Gifford‐McMahon (GM) refrigerator to cool the TES microcalorimeter to ∼100 mK. In order to avoid micro phonics of GM fridge to propagate to the TEM, pressurized He gas is circulated between the DR and the GM to reject heat from the DR. The GM is mechanically well isolated from the TEM. In oder to obtain 3 kcps counting rate, we utilize a ten pixel TES array and read out the signals in parallel wtih ten analog signal channels from cryogenic to room temperature electronics. One of the pixels can be always irradiated by a radio isotope for energy calibration. As the first step, we have attached a single pixel TES system cooled by the cryogen‐free cooling system to the TEM and obtained an energy resolution of 8 eV at 1.8 keV without degrading the spatial resolution of the TEM at a 2 Å level. A ten pixel TES system is also being developed from the front‐end detector assembly to the room temperature digital electronics. We describe the signal processing system and packaging of the detector assembly.