The electronic properties
of two-dimensional (2D) materials depend
sensitively on the underlying atomic arrangement down to the monolayer
level. Here we present a novel strategy for the determination of the
band gap and complex dielectric function in 2D materials achieving
a spatial resolution down to a few nanometers. This approach is based
on machine learning techniques developed in particle physics and makes
possible the automated processing and interpretation of spectral images
from electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). Individual spectra
are classified as a function of the thickness with
K
-means clustering, and then used to train a deep-learning model of
the zero-loss peak background. As a proof of concept we assess the
band gap and dielectric function of InSe flakes and polytypic WS
2
nanoflowers and correlate these electrical properties with
the local thickness. Our flexible approach is generalizable to other
nanostructured materials and to higher-dimensional spectroscopies
and is made available as a new release of the open-source EELSfitter
framework.
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