Silicon-germanium thin films have been analyzed by EDS microanalysis
in a field emission gun scanning transmission electron microscope
(FEG-STEM) equipped with a high angular dark-field detector
(STEM/HAADF). Several spectra have been acquired in the same
homogeneous area of the cross-sectioned sample by drift-corrected linescan
acquisitions. The Ge concentrations and the local film thickness have been
obtained by using a previously described Monte Carlo based “two tilt
angles” method. Although the concentrations are in excellent
agreement with the known values, the resulting confidence intervals are
not as good as expected from the precision in beam positioning and tilt
angle position and readout offered by our state-of-the-art microscope. The
Gaussian shape of the SiKα and GeKα X-ray intensities allows one
to use the parametric bootstrap method of statistics, whereby it becomes
possible to perform the same quantitative analysis in sample regions of
different compositions and thicknesses, but by doing only one measurement
at the two angles.