Dose-limited spectroscopic imaging of soft materials by low-loss EELS in the scanning transmission electron microscope

Spectroscopic imaging in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) using spatially resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) provides one of the few ways to quantitatively measure the real-space nanoscale morphology of soft materials such as polymers and biological tissue. This paper describes the basic principles of this technique and outlines some of the important attributes that define the achievable spatial resolution. Many soft materials can be differentiated from each other as well as from solvents based on their EELS fingerprints.