Opportunities and Challenges in Ultra-High Energy Resolution EELS

UHERES has allowed the spatial distribution of phonons to be mapped [1], hydrogen to be detected by its vibrational signature [3,4], and Rutherford scattering to be energy-analyzed in the electron microscope [5]. In the future, UHERES is likely to introduce further revolutionary capabilities such as determining, by aloof vibrational spectroscopy, the types of organic compounds attached to catalytic nanoparticles, and analyzing the molecular species present in biological tissues. Promising starts have been made in these directions, and will be reported in other contributions to the present session. This contribution focuses on the progress being made and principal challenges on the instrumentation side, and on our hopes for detecting an atomically resolved vibrational signal.