Measuring the areal density of nanomaterials by electron energy-loss spectroscopy

Thickness measurements of nanomaterials are usually performed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques such as convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) patterns analysis and the log-ratio method based on electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) spectrum. However, it is challenging to obtain both the thickness and elemental information, especially in non-crystalline materials or for very thin samples. In this work, we establish a series of procedures to calculate the areal density of the material by directly measuring the inelastic scattering probability in a thin sample. Core-loss EELS are fit with a quantitative model to extract atomic areal density. Knowledge of one of the parameters (volume density or sample thickness) allows a measurement of the other. The absolute error between the known thicknesses and those measured was less than 4% using two-dimensional materials with a well-defined thickness as test samples, which is much better than the log-ratio method for very thin samples. One promising advantage of this method is the thickness/areal density determination in mixed phase/element systems. We use Ag-Co bimetallic triangles and black rutile as examples to calculate the thickness map in mixture systems in different cases. We also demonstrate this technique can be applied to measure the argon gas density in spherical cavities. This allows a temperature vs pressure curve to be obtained and illustrates the unique capability of this technique.