A note on the increase in usable foil thickness in scanning transmission electron microscopy

Abstract
A change from conventional transmission electron microscopy to scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) does not increase the usable foil thickness of gold, the dominant inelastic scattering mechanism being phonon excitation. If the expected improvements for light-element materials in the STEM mode transpire, then for increased usable foil thickness, high-voltage electron microscopy and STEM will form complementary techniques with respect to specimen atomic weight.