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Determination of the Effective Detector Area of an Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometer at the Scanning Electron Microscope Using Experimental and Theoretical X-Ray Emission Yields

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2016

Mathias Procop ,
Vasile-Dan Hodoroaba ,
Ralf Terborg  and
Dirk Berger
Mathias Procop
Affiliation:
Division 6.1 Surface Analysis and Interfacial Chemistry, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), 12200 Berlin, Germany
Vasile-Dan Hodoroaba*
Affiliation:
Division 6.1 Surface Analysis and Interfacial Chemistry, Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), 12200 Berlin, Germany
Ralf Terborg
Affiliation:
Bruker Nano GmbH, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Dirk Berger
Affiliation:
Center for Electron Microscopy (ZELMI), Technical University of Berlin, 10623 Berlin, Germany
*
*Corresponding author.Dan.Hodoroaba@bam.de
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Abstract

A method is proposed to determine the effective detector area for energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometers (EDS). Nowadays, detectors are available for a wide range of nominal areas ranging from 10 up to 150 mm2. However, it remains in most cases unknown whether this nominal area coincides with the “net active sensor area” that should be given according to the related standard ISO 15632, or with any other area of the detector device. Moreover, the specific geometry of EDS installation may further reduce a given detector area. The proposed method can be applied to most scanning electron microscope/EDS configurations. The basic idea consists in a comparison of the measured count rate with the count rate resulting from known X-ray yields of copper, titanium, or silicon. The method was successfully tested on three detectors with known effective area and applied further to seven spectrometers from different manufacturers. In most cases the method gave an effective area smaller than the area given in the detector description.

Keywords

energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS)EDXeffective areaX-ray emission yieldgeometrical collection efficiency
Type
Instrumentation and Software Techniques
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , December 2016 , pp. 1360 - 1368
Copyright
© Microscopy Society of America 2016 

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Footnotes

†

Current address: IfG-Institute for Scientific Instruments, 12489 Berlin, Germany.

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