Principal components analysis (PCA) factor filtering is implemented
for the improvement of background removal in noisy spectra. When PCA is
used as a method for filtering before background removal in electron
energy loss spectroscopy elemental maps, an improvement in the accuracy
of the background fit with very short fitting intervals is achieved,
leading to improved quality of elemental maps from noisy spectra. This
opens the possibility to use shorter exposure times for elemental
mapping, leading to fewer problems with, for example, drift and beam
damage.
