A straightforward method for measuring the white line intensities of the L23 absorption edges of 3d transition metal electron energy loss spectra was recently reported by Pearson et al. [1]. In that analysis, the white line intensities were isolated by assuming that the continuum contribution for the 3d metals could be approximated by an edge shape similiar to that of copper, which has a full 3d band. When normalized to the continuum, the white line intensities were found to decrease linearly with atomic number (or 3d state occupancy). A similar analysis for the 4d metals showed that the white line intensities initially increased, peaked at Nb, and then decreased nearly linearly with atomic number [2]. The white line calculations of Ahn et al. were in qualitative agreement with these results for the 4d metals, but deviated from experimental results for the early 3d metals [3]. In an effort to determine if the continuum L23 edge is indeed copper-like for the early 3d metals we have calculated the continuum edge shapes based on an atomic, one electron model.
