The potential of energy loss spectroscopy for electronic characterization of structures on the nanometer scale

The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in the use of electron spectroscopy coupled with microscopy. Though dominant consideration has been aimed at elemental analysis and the use of ELS as a complementary tool with EDX for elemental determination, much less consideration has been given to one of the more powerful aspects of this spectroscopy, namely, electronic structure determination on the nanometer scale. It is the purpose here to consider certain aspects of such determination on the nanometer scale (with reference to elucidation and evaluation of man-made nanostructures) and to discuss some aspects of spectrometer design relevant to such determinations. (orig.)