Getting the most out of a post-column EELS spectrometer on a TEM/STEM by optimising the optical coupling

Ray tracing is used to find improved set-ups of the projector system of a JEOL ARM 200CF TEM/STEM for use in coupling it to a Gatan 965 Quantum ER EELS system and to explain their performance. The system has a probe aberration corrector but no image corrector. With the latter, the problem would be more challenging. The agreement between the calculated performance and that found experimentally is excellent. At 200 kV and using the 2.5 mm Quantum entrance aperture, the energy range over which the collection angle changes by a maximum of 5% from that at zero loss has been increased from 1.2 keV to 4.7 keV. At lower accelerating voltages, these energy ranges are lower e.g. at 80 kV they are 0.5 keV and 2.0 keV respectively. The key factors giving the improvement are an increase in the energy-loss at which the projector cross-over goes to infinity and a reduction of the combination aberrations that occur in a lens stack. As well as improving the energy-loss range, the new set-ups reduce spectrum artefacts and minimise the motion of the diffraction pattern at low STEM magnification for electrons that have lost energy. Even if making the pivot points conjugate with the film plane gives no motion for zero-loss electrons, there will be motion for those electrons that have lost energy, leading to a false sense of security when performing spectrum imaging at low magnifications. De-scanning of the probe after the objective lens is a better way of dealing with this problem.