Quantitative Electron-Excited X-ray Microanalysis at Low Beam Energy

Barriers to Quantitative Electron Probe X-Ray Microanalysis for Low Voltage Scanning Electron Microscopy

Low voltage x-ray microanalysis, defined as being performed with an incident beam energy ≤5 keV, can achieve spatial resolution, laterally and in depth, of 100 nm or less, depending on the exact selection of beam energy and the composition of the target. The shallow depth of beam penetration, with the consequent short path length for x-ray absorption, and the low overvoltage, the ratio of beam ...

Quantitative Energy-dispersive Electron Probe X-ray Microanalysis of Individual Particles

An electron probe X-ray microanalysis (EPMA) technique using an energy-dispersive X-ray detector with an ultra-thin window, designated low-Z particle EPMA, has been developed. The low-Z particle EPMA allows the quantitative determination of concentrations of low-Z elements such as C, N, and O, as well as higher-Z elements that can be analyzed by conventional energydispersive EPMA. The quantitat...

X-ray microanalysis attachment for electron microscope.

Fundamental Constants for Quantitative X-ray Microanalysis.

Quantitative X-ray microanalysis requires the use of many fundamental constants related to the interaction of the electron beam with the sample. The current state of our knowledge of such constants in the particular areas of electron stopping power, X-ray ionization cross-sections, X-ray fluorescence yield, and the electron backscattering yield, is examined. It is found that, in every case, the...

Mistakes encountered during automatic peak identification of minor and trace constituents in electron-excited energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis.

Automated peak identification in electron beam-excited X-ray microanalysis with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry has been shown to be subject to occasional mistakes even on well-separated, high-intensity peaks arising from major constituents (arbitrarily defined as a concentration, C, which exceeds a mass fraction of 0.1). The peak identification problem becomes even more problematic for co...