A method for a column-by-column EELS quantification of barium lanthanum ferrate

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Judith Lammer
  • Christian Berger
  • Stefan Löffler
  • Daniel Knez
  • Paolo Longo
  • Gerald Kothleitner
  • Ferdinand Hofer
  • Georg Haberfehlner
  • Werner Grogger

Organisational units

External Organisational units

  • Institute of Materials Science and Technology
  • Technische Universität Graz
  • Gatan Inc.

Abstract

High-resolution STEM-EELS provides information about the composition of crystalline materials at the atomic scale, though a reliable quantitative chemical analysis is often hampered by zone axis conditions, where neighbouring atomic column intensities contribute to the signal at the probe position. In this work, we present a procedure to determine the concentration of two elements within equivalent atomic columns from EELS elemental maps – in our case barium and lanthanum within the A-sites of Ba 1.1La 1.9Fe 2O 7, a second order Ruddlesden-Popper phase. We took advantage of the large changes in the elemental distribution from column to column and introduced a technique, which substitutes inelastic scattering cross sections during the quantification step by using parameters obtained from the actual experiment. We considered channelling / de-channelling effects via inelastic multislice simulations and were thereby able to count occupancies in each atomic column. The EELS quantification results were then used as prior information during the Rietveld refinement in XRD measurements in order to differentiate between barium and lanthanum.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number113477
Number of pages9
JournalUltramicroscopy
Volume234.2022
Issue numberApril
Early online date26 Jan 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2022