Energy loss spectroscopic profiling across linear interfaces: The example of amorphous carbon superlattices

Energy loss spectroscopic profiling is a way to acquire, in parallel, spectroscopic information across a linear feature of interest, using a Gatan imaging filter (GIF) fitted to a transmission electron microscope (TEM). This technique is capable of translating the high spatial resolution of a bright field image into a sampling of the spectral information with similar resolution. Here we evaluate the contributions of chromatic aberration and the various acquisition parameters to the spatial sampling resolution of the spectral information, and show that this can reach 0.5 nm, in a system not ordinarily capable of forming electron probes smaller than 2 nm. We use this high spatial sampling resolution to study the plasmon energy variation across amorphous carbon superlattices, in order to extract information about their structure and electronic properties. By modelling the interaction of the relativistic incident electrons with a dielectric layer sandwiched between outer layers, we show that, due to the screening of the interfaces and at increased collection angles, the plasmon energy in the sandwiched layer can still be identified for layer thicknesses down to 5 Å. This allows us to measure the change in the well bandgap as a function of well width and to interpret it in terms of the changes in the sp2-fractions due to the deposition method, as measured from the carbon K-edges, and in terms of quantum confinement of the well wavefunction by the adjacent barriers.