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Compositional Averaging of Continuum Intensities in Multielement Compounds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2002

John J. Donovan  and
Nicholas E. Pingitore
John J. Donovan
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-4767, USA
Nicholas E. Pingitore
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968-0555, USA
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Abstract

We find no physical basis for traditional mass-fraction weighted averaging of X-ray continuum measured in pure elements to estimate continuum production from compounds. Measurements of continuum from pairs of stable isotopes demonstrate that mass alone (the presence of more or fewer neutrons) has no effect on continuum production in electron probe microanalysis. Electron-fraction weighted averaging, which is based on the relative contribution of each constituent element to the electron (or proton) composition of a compound, proved superior to mass-fraction weighted averaging, in predicting the continuum of a compound from the measured continuum of its elements.

Keywords

atomic fractionatomic number averagingaverage atomic numberbremsstrahlungelectron fractionmass averagingmass fractionmean atomic numberX-ray continuumz-bar
Type
MICROANALYSIS
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 8 , Issue 5 , October 2002 , pp. 429 - 436
Copyright
2002 Microscopy Society of America

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