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Problems of quantitative secondary ion microanalysis (SIMA) of low alloy steels
Author(s) -
Illgen L.,
Mai H.,
Seidenkranz U.,
Voigtmann R.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.740020302
Subject(s) - secondary electrons , alloy , ion , materials science , secondary emission , metallurgy , carbon fibers , carbide , analytical chemistry (journal) , microanalysis , microstructure , electron probe microanalysis , ion beam , electron microprobe , chemistry , electron , nuclear physics , composite material , physics , composite number , organic chemistry , chromatography
The applicablity of the National Bureau of Standards steel standards 461–468 and 662–664 for testing the CARISMA Correction program for quantitative secondary ion analyses, supplied by ARL, Sunland, California, USA. program has been investigated. Measurement of the secondary ion intensity of a number of alloying elements using 16 O 2 +primary ions of 20 keV kinetic energy and a primary ion beam 130 µm in diameter gave results of good reproducibility for repeated samplings of the same specimen ( S rel always <0.2), thus indicating a tolerable sampling error. But for some of the elements measured a bad correlation between the secondary ion intensity and the elemental concentration of different standard samples has been found. Carbon (an element of great importance for the properties of steels and of major influence on the outcome of CARISMA calculations) showed the most arbitrary behaviour in this sense. Detailed investigations of the microstructure and microcomposition of the standard samples by metallography, texture analysis, EPMA with X‐rays and backscattered electrons, and particularly by SIMA, showed that (a) the carbon secondary ion intensity is correlated to the sum of the Ti, Zr, Nb and Ta concentrations in the samples, and (b) the microvolumes of enhanced carbon secondary ion emission are mainly mixed carbides or carbonitrides of Ti, Zr, Nb and Ta.