Influence of experimental conditions on localized surface plasmon resonances measurement by STEM-EELS

Dr Michal Horák (supervised by prof. Tomáš Šikola) has recently published in Ultramicroscopy an experimental study of the influence of the primary beam energy and the collection semi-angle on the plasmon resonances measurement by STEM-EELS. He discussed the impact on experimental characteristics which are important for successful detection of the plasmon peak in EELS, namely: the intensity of the plasmonic signal, the signal to background ratio, and the signal to zero-loss peak ratio. He found that the primary beam energy should be high enough to suppress the scattering in the sample and at the same time should be low enough to avoid the appearance of relativistic effects. Consequently, the best results are obtained using medium primary beam energy, in our case 120 keV, and an arbitrary collection semi-angle, as it is not a critical parameter at this primary beam energy.

M. Horák, T. Šikola: Influence of experimental conditions on localized surface plasmon resonances measurement by electron energy loss spectroscopy. Ultramicroscopy 216 (2020), 113044