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Micro‐XRF excitation in an SEM
Author(s) -
Haschke M.,
Eggert F.,
Elam W. T.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
x‐ray spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.447
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1097-4539
pISSN - 0049-8246
DOI - 10.1002/xrs.974
Subject(s) - electron microprobe , excitation , analytical chemistry (journal) , scanning electron microscope , electron excitation , electron , sensitivity (control systems) , excited state , materials science , optics , chemistry , atomic physics , physics , mineralogy , chromatography , quantum mechanics , electronic engineering , engineering
Electron microscopes are often used for position‐sensitive elemental analysis of non‐homogeneous material by electron‐probe‐micro‐analysis (EPMA). Due to the high spectral background, this method is limited in sensitivity. The availability of x‐ray optics allows the generation of focussed x‐ray beams with spot sizes in the micrometer range. The x‐ray excited spectra have a better peak‐to‐background ratio and, therefore, a higher sensitivity. Further, the excitation efficiency for both electrons and photons varies with the atomic number. Therefore, light elements can be analysed better with electron excitation. The combination of analytical results from electron and x‐ray excitation, therefore, should improve the accuracy of quantification. The paper presents a µ‐XRF excitation unit for scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and describes the quantification model that is prepared for this device. The quantification is performed for few samples. These results show that the standardless quantification give a good accuracy. Especially in case of presence of light elements like C, O or N in the matrix, the XRF results can be improved by consideration of results from EPMA. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.