Low dose, limited energy spectroscopic x-ray microscopy

In order to achieve high quality in situ spectroscopic X-ray microscopy of complex systems far from equilibrium, such as lithium ion batteries under standard electrochemical cycling, careful consideration of the total number of energy points is required. Enough energy points are need to accurately determine the per pixel chemical information; however, total radiation dose needs to be limited to avoid damaging the system which would produce misleading results. Here we consider the number of energy points need to accurately reproduce the state of charge maps of a LiFePO 2 electrode recorded during electrochemical cycling. We observe very good per pixel agreement using only 13 energy points. Additionally, we find the quality of the agreement is heavily dependent on the number of energy points used in the post edge fit during normalization of the spectra rather than the total number of energies used. Finally, we suggest a straightforward protocol for determining the minimum number of energy points needed prior to initiating any in situ spectroscopic X-ray microscopy experiment.