Shakeup in soft-x-ray emission. I. The low-energy tail

Development of wavelength-dispersive soft X-ray emission spectrometers for transmission electron microscopes--an introduction of valence electron spectroscopy for transmission electron microscopy

Two types of wavelength-dispersive soft X-ray spectrometers, a high-dispersion type and a conventional one, for transmission electron microscopes were constructed. Those spectrometers were used to study the electronic states of valence electrons (bonding electrons). Both spectrometers extended the acceptable energy regions to higher than 2000 eV. The best energy resolution of 0.08 eV was obtained for an Al L-emission spectrum by using the high-dispersion type spectrometer. By using the spectrometer, C K-emission of carbon allotropes, Cu L-emission of Cu(1-x)Zn(x) alloys and Pt M-emission spectra were presented. The FWHM value of 12 eV was obtained for the Pt Malpha-emission peak. The performance of the conventional one was also presented for ZnS and a section specimen of a multilayer device. W-M and Si-K emissions were clearly resolved. Soft X-ray emission spectroscopy based on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has an advantage for obtaining spectra from a single crystalline specimen with a defined crystal setting. As an example of anisotropic soft X-ray emission, C K-emission spectra of single crystalline graphite with different crystal settings were presented. From the spectra, density of states of pi- and sigma-bondings were separately derived. These results demonstrated a method to analyse the electronic states of valence electrons of materials in the nanometre scale based on TEM.

Core and valence exciton formation in x-ray absorption, x-ray emission and x-ray excited optical luminescence from passivated Si nanocrystals at the Si L(2,3) edge

Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), x-ray absorption spectroscopy and x-ray excited optical luminescence (XEOL) have been used to measure element specific filled and empty electronic states over the Si L(2,3) edge of passivated Si nanocrystals of narrow size distribution (diameter 2.2 ± 0.4 nm). These techniques have been employed to directly measure absorption and luminescence specific to the local Si nanocrystal core. Profound changes occur in the absorption spectrum of the nanocrystals compared with bulk Si, and new features are observed in the nanocrystal RIXS. Clear signatures of core and valence band exciton formation, promoted by the spatial confinement of electrons and holes within the nanocrystals, are observed, together with band narrowing due to quantum confinement. XEOL at 12 K shows an extremely sharp feature at the threshold of orange luminescence (i.e., at ∼1.56 eV (792 nm)) which we attribute to recombination of valence excitons, providing a lower limit to the nanocrystal band gap.