Standardless Quantification of Heavy Elements by Electron Probe Microanalysis.

Absolute Mα and Mβ X-ray intensities were measured for the elements Pt, Au, Pb, U, and Th by electron impact for energies ranging from 6 to 38 keV. Experimental data were obtained by measuring the X-ray intensity emitted from bulk samples with an electron microprobe using high-resolution wavelength-dispersive spectrometers. Recorded X-ray intensities were converted into absolute X-ray yields by evaluation of the detector efficiency and then compared with X-ray intensities calculated by means of Monte Carlo simulations.

Electron probe microanalysis of thin films and multilayers using the computer program XFILM.

XFILM is a computer program for determining the thickness and composition of thin films on substrates and multilayers by electron probe microanalysis. In this study, we describe the X-ray emission model implemented in the latest version of XFILM and assess its reliability by comparing measured and calculated k-ratios from thin-film samples available in the literature. We present and discuss examples of applications of XFILM that illustrate the capabilities of the program.

Microanalysis of porous materials.

A signal loss is generally reported in electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) of porous, highly divided materials like heterogeneous catalysts. The hypothesis generally proposed to explain this signal loss refers to porosity, roughness, energy losses at interfaces, or charging effects. In this work we investigate by Monte Carlo simulation all these physical effects and compare the simulated results with measurements obtained on a mesoporous alumina.