A method to determine the plural inelastic scattering contributions to an electron energy loss spectrum from a biological or organic specimen has been developed. A Fortran program based on a multiple linear least squares regression algorithm was written to fit to a collected data spectrum computer-generated reference spectra consisting of the first through nth plural scattering contributions. Fitted distributions are subtracted from the data to reveal contributions from elements in very low concentrations; and quantification of elemental concentrations is obtained from the fitted single inelastic scattering distributions.
