An X-Ray Microanalyzer for Elements of Low Atomic Number

Author(s):  
RAY M. DOLBY
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
M.D. Ball ◽  
H. Lagace ◽  
M.C. Thornton

The backscattered electron coefficient η for transmission electron microscope specimens depends on both the atomic number Z and the thickness t. Hence for specimens of known atomic number, the thickness can be determined from backscattered electron coefficient measurements. This work describes a simple and convenient method of estimating the thickness and the corrected composition of areas of uncertain atomic number by combining x-ray microanalysis and backscattered electron intensity measurements.The method is best described in terms of the flow chart shown In Figure 1. Having selected a feature of interest, x-ray microanalysis data is recorded and used to estimate the composition. At this stage thickness corrections for absorption and fluorescence are not performed.


Author(s):  
Robert E. Ogilvie

The search for an empirical absorption equation begins with the work of Siegbahn (1) in 1914. At that time Siegbahn showed that the value of (μ/ρ) for a given element could be expressed as a function of the wavelength (λ) of the x-ray photon by the following equationwhere C is a constant for a given material, which will have sudden jumps in value at critial absorption limits. Siegbahn found that n varied from 2.66 to 2.71 for various solids, and from 2.66 to 2.94 for various gases.Bragg and Pierce (2) , at this same time period, showed that their results on materials ranging from Al(13) to Au(79) could be represented by the followingwhere μa is the atomic absorption coefficient, Z the atomic number. Today equation (2) is known as the “Bragg-Pierce” Law. The exponent of 5/2(n) was questioned by many investigators, and that n should be closer to 3. The work of Wingardh (3) showed that the exponent of Z should be much lower, p = 2.95, however, this is much lower than that found by most investigators.


Author(s):  
Werner P. Rehbach ◽  
Peter Karduck

In the EPMA of soft x rays anomalies in the background are found for several elements. In the literature extremely high backgrounds in the region of the OKα line are reported for C, Al, Si, Mo, and Zr. We found the same effect also for Boron (Fig. 1). For small glancing angles θ, the background measured using a LdSte crystal is significantly higher for B compared with BN and C, although the latter are of higher atomic number. It would be expected, that , characteristic radiation missing, the background IB (bremsstrahlung) is proportional Zn by variation of the atomic number of the target material. According to Kramers n has the value of unity, whereas Rao-Sahib and Wittry proposed values between 1.12 and 1.38 , depending on Z, E and Eo. In all cases IB should increase with increasing atomic number Z. The measured values are in discrepancy with the expected ones.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (14) ◽  
pp. 293-1-293-7
Author(s):  
Ankit Manerikar ◽  
Fangda Li ◽  
Avinash C. Kak

Dual Energy Computed Tomography (DECT) is expected to become a significant tool for voxel-based detection of hazardous materials in airport baggage screening. The traditional approach to DECT imaging involves collecting the projection data using two different X-ray spectra and then decomposing the data thus collected into line integrals of two independent characterizations of the material properties. Typically, one of these characterizations involves the effective atomic number (Zeff) of the materials. However, with the X-ray spectral energies typically used for DECT imaging, the current best-practice approaches for dualenergy decomposition yield Zeff values whose accuracy range is limited to only a subset of the periodic-table elements, more specifically to (Z < 30). Although this estimation can be improved by using a system-independent ρe — Ze (SIRZ) space, the SIRZ transformation does not efficiently model the polychromatic nature of the X-ray spectra typically used in physical CT scanners. In this paper, we present a new decomposition method, AdaSIRZ, that corrects this shortcoming by adapting the SIRZ decomposition to the entire spectrum of an X-ray source. The method reformulates the X-ray attenuation equations as direct functions of (ρe, Ze) and solves for the coefficients using bounded nonlinear least-squares optimization. Performance comparison of AdaSIRZ with other Zeff estimation methods on different sets of real DECT images shows that AdaSIRZ provides a higher output accuracy for Zeff image reconstructions for a wider range of object materials.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (45) ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
Salman Zaidan Khalaf ◽  
Khaleel Abrahim ◽  
Imad Kassar Akeab

    X-ray emission contains some of the gaseous properties is produced when the particles of the solar wind strike the atmosphere of comet ISON and PanSTARRS Comets. The data collected with NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory of the two comets, C/2012 S1 (also known as Comet ISON) and C/2011 S4 (Comet PanSTARRS) are used in this study.    The real abundance of the observed X-ray spectrum elements has been extracted by a new simple mathematic model. The study found some physical properties of these elements in the comet’s gas such as a relationship between the abundance with emitted energy. The elements that have emission energy (2500-6800) eV, have abundance (0.1-0.15) %, while the elements that have emission energy (850-2500) eV and (6800-9250) eV have abundance (0.2-0.3) %.    The relation between interacted energy and atomic number is form two sets.  The interacted energy of each element is increased as the atomic number increased. This case has been seen in both comets


1991 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 493-499
Author(s):  
D. Naccache ◽  
J-L. Bourgade ◽  
P. Combis ◽  
C. J. Keane ◽  
J-P. Le Breton ◽  
...  

We present some significant results of collisional excitation X-ray laser experiments in plasmas produced by a laser. We studied the amplification in Ne- and Ni-like ions by varying both the nature and the thickness of targets, the irradiation, and the wavelength of the driving laser. Some potentially interesting scalings as a function of the atomic number of the lasing element are demonstrated in the Ne-like system. An order-of-magnitude increase in gain in the Ni-like experiments was determined.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1537-1549
Author(s):  
Raed Sabeeh Karyakos ◽  
Ilham M. Yacoob ◽  
Muna Y. Slewa ◽  
Amal M. Banoosh

The dependence of the cross-section of the coherent and incoherent radiation peaks in the X-ray absorption experiment of different energies (20-800 Kev) was investigated. Cross-sectional dependence on the atomic number Z was included from the published data for (8) elements, ranging from carbon to silver (C-Ag). The proportional constant K was obtained between (σc/σi), with the atomic number Z from (6-47). The results show that the value of K exponentially changes with energy.


In a previous paper it was shown that 0·0007 per cent, of 29 Cu and 0·0003 per cent, of 26 Fe could be detected in 30 Zn by atomic analysis by X-ray spectroscopy. This sensitivity is greater than that which was claimed by Noddack, Tacke, and Berg, who set the limit at about 0·1 per cent, for non-metals, and by Hevesy, who stated it to be about 0·01 per cent, for an element present in an alloy. It was later suggested by Hevesy that the high value of the sensitivity which we found might result from the fact that some of the alloys we had used were composed of elements of almost equal atomic number, and that the sensitivity would be smaller for a constituent of low atomic number mixed with a major constituent of high atomic number. To elucidate these disagreements we have made further observations of the sensitivity with elements of different atomic number and have investigated the conditions which can influence the sensitivity. The Factors Determining Sensitivity . The detection of one element in a mixture of elements depends upon the identification of its K or L lines in the general spectrum emitted by the mixture under examination. The intensity with which these lines are excited in the target (“excited intensity”) is proportional to the number of atoms of the constituent element excited, i. e ., to its concentration and to the volume of the target in which the cathode ray energy is absorbed. The depth of penetration of the cathode rays is determined by the density of the target material and by their velocity ( i. e ., by the voltage applied to the X-ray tube). Schonland has shown that the range of homogeneous cathode rays in different elements, expressed as a mass per unit area, is approximately constant and is independent of the atomic number of the absorbing element. When their velocity is increased, the cathode rays will penetrate to a greater depth, and therefore a greater number of atoms of all constituents will be ionised. This will increase the “excited intensity” of the lines due to the particular constituent sought equally with those lines of the other elements present. The intensity of a line further depends upon the difference between the voltage applied to the X-ray tube and that necessary to excite the series. For these reasons, a high applied voltage is required for a high sensitivity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 93-99
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Sakurai ◽  
Kazushi Hoshi ◽  
Yosuke Harasawa ◽  
Daiki Ono ◽  
Kun Zhang ◽  
...  

We developed the photon counting CT system by using a conventional laboratory X-ray source and a CdTe line sensor. Attenuation coefficients were obtained from the measured CT image data. Our suggested method for deriving the electron density and effective atomic number from the measured attenuation coefficients was tested experimentally. The accuracy of the electron densities and effective atomic numbers are about <5 % (the averages of absolute values are 2.6 % and 3.1 %, respectively) for material of 6< Z and Zeff <13. Our suggested simple method, in which we do not need the exact source X-ray spectrum and detector response function, achieves comparable accuracy to the previous reports.


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