Performance of the Gatan PEELS™ on the VG HB501 STEM

Abstract

Parallel-detection electron energy-loss spectrometers offer several hundred times the detection efficiency of serial-detection spectrometers, as well as improved energy resolution. These advantages should be especially important when using a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) with a cold field emission gun (FEG), in which the available beam current is typically 10 to 100 times less than in a conventional TEM, while the beam energy spread is typically only 0.3 eV. We have therefore investigated the performance of the Gatan parallel-detection spectrometer (Gatan model 666 PEELS™) when mounted on the VG HB501 FEG STEM.