Charged-particle counting via non-backthinned integration detectors and beam energy quantization

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• accessing, by a device operatively coupled to a processor, an energy integration image of a specimen scanned by a charged-particle microscope equipped with a non-backthinned integration detector;
• and
• counting, by the device, how many charged-particle events are represented by respective pixels of the energy integration image, based on rounding cumulative charged-particle energy intensities indicated by respective clusters of pixels to nearest integer multiples of a beam energy of the charged-particle microscope.

A computer program product for facilitating charged-particle counting via non-backthinned integration detectors and beam energy quantization, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable memory having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a processor to cause the processor to:

• access an energy integration image of a specimen scanned by an electron energy-loss microscope equipped with a non-backthinned integration detector;
• and
• count how many electron events are represented by respective pixels of the energy integration image, based on rounding cumulative electron energy intensities indicated by respective clusters of pixels to nearest integer multiples of a beam energy of the electron energy-loss microscope.