The second derivative mode of peak analysis in electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) in a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) has been quantitatively evaluated in terms of the accuracy of the method. This includes a demonstration of the importance of the second derivative peak width, the second order dependency of the accuracy upon that peak width and effect of high frequency noise in the spectra. It is shown that while the second derivative method is an efficacious and powerful mode of analysis, there are limitations in terms of the number of significant digits in both the spectral values and derived electronic quantities. The case of uranium N_4,5 spectral peaks and the 5f population is presented as an example, with UO₂ X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy used as a benchmark.

透射电子显微镜 (TEM) 中电子能量损失光谱 (EELS) 峰分析的二阶导数模式已根据该方法的准确性进行了定量评估。这包括证明二阶导数峰宽的重要性、精度对该峰宽的二阶依赖性以及频谱中高频噪声的影响。结果表明，虽然二阶导数方法是一种有效且强大的分析模式，但在光谱值和导出的电子量的有效位数方面都存在限制。以铀 N _4,5谱峰和 5f 族为例，其中 UO ₂X 射线吸收光谱用作基准。