Recent studies have indicated that focussed beams of high energy electrons can cause significant elemental redistribution in materials in the electron microscope. This redistribution can be attributed to a variety of effects, e.g., electron-beam sputtering, radiation-induced segregation (RIS) and electron-beam mixing, which are exacerbated by the use of a focussed electron probe. In most imaging situations focussed probes are neither necessary nor desirable. However, in an Analytical Electron Microscope (AEM) highly focussed probes are routinely employed to obtain high spatial resolution in microanalysis. In this work X-ray Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy (XEDS) has been used to investigate elemental redistribution by displacement damage in an alloy of A1-1.95at%Zn during microanalysis in one of the new series of medium-voltage (300–400 kV) analytical electron microscopes. The results indicate that for low specimen temperatures ( T < 0.4 T m) and sufficiently high electron fluxes (> 3 × 10 4 A/m 2), the atomic displacement effects do not significantly alter the results of XEDS analysis (probe size range 300 to 7.5 nm). Electron beam knock-on sputtering may remove several tens of nanometres of surface material, if the specimen surfaces are clean. However, this produces compositional changes only if one or more of the alloy components sputter preferentially, or if there is Gibbsian segregation to the foil surface.