An iterative procedure for the correction of secondary fluorescence effects in electron-probe microanalysis near phase boundaries

A correction procedure is proposed to correct for the effects of characteristic fluorescence in EPMA near phase boundaries. The necessary equations for the simple case of two homogeneous alloys sharing a common interface are given. The equations have been tested in practice and it is shown that they are well suited to predict the apparent concentration of the element suffering from secondary excitation as a function of distance from the boundary. Based on these equations an iterative correction procedure is proposed for application to sloping concentration profiles. The procedure is illustrated on some practical examples and some of the factors connected with its performance are briefly discussed.