Valence electron energy loss spectroscopy in reflection geometry

The low energy loss region of a EELS spectrum carries information about the valence electron excitation processes (e.g., collective excitations for free electron like materials and interband transitions for insulators). The relative intensities and the positions of the interband transition energy loss peaks observed in EELS spectra are determined by the joint density of states (DOS) of the initial and final states of the excitation processes. Thus it is expected that EELS in reflection mode could yield information about the perturbation of the DOS of the conduction and valence bands of the bulk crystals caused by the termination of the three dimensional periodicity at the crystal surfaces. The experiments were performed in a Philipps 400T transmission electron microscope operated at 120 kV. The reflection EELS spectra were obtained by a Gatan 607 EELS spectrometer together with a Tracor data acquisition system and the resolution of the spectrometer was about 0.8 eV. All the reflection spectra are obtained from the specular reflection spots satisfying surface resonance conditions.