A new background subtraction for low‐energy EELS core edges

SUMMARY A new three‐parameter function is proposed that improves the ‘classical’ power‐law function for background subtraction processing at low energy losses in electron energy‐loss spectroscopy. The variation of the edge integrals with the width of the pre‐edge window Γ is reduced by a factor of at least five (of interest for accurate quantitative analysis), as is the variation in the height of energy‐loss near‐edge structure. The lower energy limit used for previous background functions has been cut by a factor of two or more. However, the principal advantage of this background function is that the difficulty in the choice of the pre‐edge window Γ is removed since the widest possible need only be taken.