Electron-energy-loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence for particles inside substrate

To simulate the interaction of a nanoparticle with an electron beam, we previously developed a theoretical description for the general case of a particle fully embedded in an infinite arbitrary host medium. The theory is based on the volume-integral variant of frequency-domain Maxwell’s equations and, therefore, is naturally applicable in the discrete-dipole approximation. The fully-embedded approximation allows fast numerical simulations of the experiments for particles inside a substrate since the host medium discretization is not needed. In this work, we study how applicable the fully-embedded approach is for realistic scenarios with relatively thin substrates. In particular, we performed test simulations for a silver sphere both inside an infinite host medium and inside a finite box or sphere. For the host medium, we considered two non-absorbing cases (the denser one causes Cherenkov radiation), as well as an absorbing case. The peak positions in the obtained spectra approximately agree between substrates a few times thicker than the sphere and the infinite one. However, a much thicker substrate (of the order of μm) would be required to have a qualitative agreement for absolute peak amplitudes. The developed algorithm is implemented in the open-source code ADDA, allowing one to rigorously and efficiently simulate electron-energy-loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence by particles of arbitrary shape and internal structure embedded into any homogeneous host medium.