Nanoanalysis by a high-resolution energy filtering transmission electron microscope

An energy-filtering transmission electron microscope with 300 kV acceleration voltage was developed and the spatial resolution of elemental distribution images was improved. Observing oxygen monolayers in Al 11O3N9, it was shown that the actual resolution attained is up to 0.5 nm. Surface plasmon loss images of silver particles were taken with a resolution of better than 0.4 nm. Furthermore, the sensitivity is sufficiently high to distinguish indium content differences of 2.5 atomic percent in InxAl1-xAs. This performance is good enough to analyze elemental distribution with atomic-level resolution. Furthermore, since analysis with the energy-filtering microscope is easy and practical, nanoanalysis may come into wide use not only in academic fields but also in industry.