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Measurement of Trace Constituents by Electron-Excited X-Ray Microanalysis with Energy-Dispersive Spectrometry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 May 2016

Dale E. Newbury  and
Nicholas W. M. Ritchie
Dale E. Newbury*
Affiliation:
Materials Measurement Science Division, National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA
Nicholas W. M. Ritchie
Affiliation:
Materials Measurement Science Division, National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA
*
*Corresponding author. dale.newbury@nist.gov
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Abstract

Electron-excited X-ray microanalysis performed with scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS) has been used to measure trace elemental constituents of complex multielement materials, where “trace” refers to constituents present at concentrations below 0.01 (mass fraction). High count spectra measured with silicon drift detector EDS were quantified using the standards/matrix correction protocol embedded in the NIST DTSA-II software engine. Robust quantitative analytical results for trace constituents were obtained from concentrations as low as 0.000500 (mass fraction), even in the presence of significant peak interferences from minor (concentration 0.01≤C≤0.1) and major (C>0.1) constituents. Limits of detection as low as 0.000200 were achieved in the absence of peak interference.

Keywords

electron beam X-ray microanalysisenergy-dispersive X-ray spectrometryscanning electron microscopysilicon drift detectortrace analysis
Type
Technique and Instrumentation Development
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , June 2016 , pp. 520 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2016

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