HARECX Measurements of Electron Channeling Effects on Quantitative AEM-Based XEDS

Abstract

It has been long known that orientation effects in crystalline materials can influence characteristic x-ray emission and microanalysis. Most of the recent studies have concentrated upon using the phenomenon to perform site specific distributions of impurity elements in ordered compounds using the ALCHEMI methodology. For the most part, it has been asserted that increasing the parameters of thickness, orientation and beam convergence effectively averages out these effects. Using High Angular Resolution Electron Channeling X-ray Spectroscopy (HARECXS) we have carefully measured the phenomenon in a number of ordered systems and find that it must be considered in many cases.All experimental measurements presented here were conducted on a Philips EM 420T analytical electron microscope. The instrument was operated in the TEM mode, at 120 kV using a LaB6 electron source. The characteristic x-ray emission was measured using an ED AX ultra thin window Si(Li) detector having a FWHM of ∼ 145 eV at Mn Ka.