A study was made of the influence of N vacancies on the N K-edge energy loss near-edge structure spectra; as revealed by first-principles band-structure calculations. It was found that the N K-energy-loss near-edge structure was highly sensitive to interaction between the vacancy site and the excited atom. Changes in the energy-loss near-edge structure were observed only when a N vacancy occurred at the second-nearest neighbor site of the excited atom. This could be interpreted as arising from effects exerted by the local electronic structure around the N vacancy.

Influence of Nitrogen Vacancies on the N K-ELNES Spectrum of Titanium Nitride. M.Tsujimoto, H.Kurata, T.Nemoto, S.Isoda, S.Terada, K.Kaji: Journal of Electron Spectroscopy and Related Phenomena, 2005, 143[2-3], 161-7