The high sensitivity of electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) for detecting light elements at the nanoscale makes it a valuable technique for application to biological systems. In particular, EELS provides quantitative information about elemental distributions within subcellular compartments, specific atoms bound to individual macromolecular assemblies, and the composition of bionanoparticles. The EELS data can be acquired either in the fixed beam energy-filtered transmission electron microscope (EFTEM) or in the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), and recent progress in the development of both approaches has greatly expanded the range of applications for EELS analysis. Near single atom sensitivity is now achievable for certain elements bound to isolated macromolecules, and it becomes possible to obtain three-dimensional compositional distributions from sectioned cells through EFTEM tomography.

中文翻译：

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生物科学中电子能量损失光谱的发展。

用于检测纳米级轻元素的电子能量损失光谱 (EELS) 的高灵敏度使其成为应用于生物系统的有价值的技术。特别是，EELS 提供了有关亚细胞区室中元素分布、与单个大分子组件结合的特定原子以及生物纳米粒子组成的定量信息。EELS 数据可以在固定光束能量过滤透射电子显微镜 (EFTEM) 或扫描透射电子显微镜 (STEM) 中获取，这两种方法的最新进展极大地扩展了 EELS 分析的应用范围. 对于某些与孤立大分子结合的元素，现在可以实现接近单原子的灵敏度，