A COMPARISON OF EXPERIMENTAL AND CALCULATED ELECTRON-ENERGY-LOSS NEAR-EDGE STRUCTURE OF CARBON, AND THE NITRIDES OF BORON, CARBON AND SILICON USING MULTIPLE-SCATTERING THEORY

In this paper we present a comparison of experimental K-shell near-edg e structure for a variety of materials with edges calculated using mul tiple scattering theory. The material systems studied include diamond and graphite, cubic and hexagonal boron nitride, hexagonal silicon nit ride (beta-Si3N4) and the proposed structure for hexagonal carbon nitr ide (beta-C3N4). We found that multiple scattering theory successfully predicts the majority of features in the near-edge structure of these materials. Discrepancies between experiment and theory can be account ed for by the non-self-consistent nature of potentials employed in the calculations. This work shows that multiple scattering calculations c ould be employed to help interpret features in the near-edge structure of carbon-based materials and in light element binary alloys. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science S.A.