Low Energy X-ray Microanalysis

Traditionally Electron Microscopy has been performed with a high energy electron beam, sufficient to generate high energy x-rays. Recent developments to drive electron microscopy to lower energy (more surface sensitive), has resulted in a need for microanalysis based on low energy x-rays. However, the advantage is an improvement in spatial resolution. Where the traditionally accepted limit for microanalysis was around 1 micron, now features less than 10nm can be resolved.

This low energy microanalysis requires improvement in hardware: windowless, improved sensitivity, improved energy resolution. It also requires improved software for deconvolution (eg TRUmap); as well as optimized computer speed to handle hundreds of thousands of x-ray counts and/or pixels per second. The Extremes of these analyses allow us to learn the Extremes of materials science.

You will learn: 

• Electron microscopists traditionally rely on EDS for x-ray microanalysis. We can learn more using low energy x-rays too
• What are the pitfalls of low energy analysis?
• Low energy EDS overlaps the realm of surface analysis techniques, but in many cases shows us much more/faster