Effect of thickness variations on EELS spatial-difference profiles
This paper concerns the influence of sample thickness on spatial-difference spectra, and seeks to identify if an interface dependent signal may be generated as an artifact of grain boundary grooving. The spatial-difference profiling technique may be used to identify variations in composition and electronic structure across interfaces at sub-nanometer length scales. The signal-to-background ratios and hence visibility of small changes to the near-edge structure and edge intensities are enhanced using this technique by removing intense energy dependent backgrounds. These backgrounds are assumed to be only slowly varying with respect to the electron probe position. A spatial-difference spectrum is generated from the difference between two spectra after suitable normalization or scaling. This scaling is achieved by either matching intensities of the background prior to a characteristic absorption edge (for compositional profiles) or by normalizing to some characteristic structure of the near-edge structure (for bonding profiles). The latter is performed typically after subtraction of a smooth power-law background modeled in the region immediately preceding the edge.