Fundamental parameters of x-ray microanalysis: A brief introduction
It is indeed fortunate that nature has provided us with such well-defined physical laws governing the generation of x rays and their interaction with matter. This benefit has given electron microprobe analysis two major advantages over many other techniques of analysis: it can be applied to almost all elements in the periodic table and it can be applied quantitatively. Nevertheless, we are continually striving for better and better quantitation over a wider range of conditions, and there is a corresponding pressure to improve our knowledge of the physics. The purpose of this session is to identify the fundamental parameters by which these physical laws are expressed, and to explore their relative importance in determining the accuracy of which the technique is capable.The essential link between the basic physics of microprobe analysis and its useful application is the physical model used to represent the process numerically. Many such models have been proposed in the past 40 years and these are properly the subject of a separate session on quantitative analysis.