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Recent Advances in Electron-Probe Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

J. V. P. Long*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge Cambridge, England
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Abstract

The electron-pro be analyzer has been developed in a period of thirteen years to a point where several different instruments are commercially available and about one hundred are already in use. At the present time it is possible to analyze volumes of about 1 μ3 at the surface of a specimen for elements above sodium in the periodic table with a concentration sensitivity of the order of 0.1-0.01%. New developments in the field include efforts to extend the range of Z to lower atomic numbers and to increase the spatial resolution of the method so that smaller volumes niay be analyzed. Progress in the analysis of the light elements centers at present mainly on the use of nondispersive detectors and. computer techniques for the resolution of overlapping pulse-height distributions. With such methods qualitative detection of elements down to beryllium has been achieved in the presence of their near neighbors. Efforts to increase the spatial resolution of the probe have led to the use of thin specimens which are partially transparent to electrons. Partly as a consequence of this approach, apparatus has been developed in which an electron microscope with facilities for selected area diffraction has been combined with an electron-probe analyser. The ever-widening range of application of the electron-pro be technique has inevitably disclosed problems in the interpretation of quantitative data, and it is clear that at the present time more information on the process of X-ray production by electrons is required before semi-empirical methods can be entirely eliminated. Examples of the use of the method in metallurgical and mineralogical studies illustrate some of the current trends in the refinement of measurement technique and interpretation of experimental data.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International Centre for Diffraction Data 1962

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