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Going Nondispersive

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

Kurt F. J. Heinrich
Kurt F. J. Heinrich*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, 20850(ret.)
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Extract

In February 1968 Ray Fitzgerald, Klaus Keil and myself published in Science a communication titled “Solid-State Energy-Dispersion Spectrometer for Electron Microprobe X-ray Analysis”. The authors describe the use of a lithium-drifted silicon detector for the direct identification of x-rays, without a diffracting crystal, in an electron probe. The subject of this paper was to modify profoundly the development of x-ray microanalysis in the years to follow.

Pulse-height analysis of gamma rays detected in scintillation counters was widely used at the time. For radiation of energies below 30 keV, gas proportional counters were also employed. In elementary analysis by x-rays the poor energy resolution of these detectors limited the application of such a procedure, although single-channel pulse height analysis was employed as an adjunct to crystal spectrometers.

In 1951, Raymond Castaing in his thesis described his invention of the electron probe microanalyzer, created by adding to a transmission electron microscope a curved-crystal spectrometer which focused the x-rays emitted by the specimen into a Geiger-Muller counter.

Type
30 Years of Energy Dispersive Spectrometry in Microanalysis
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 4 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '98, Microscopy Society of America 56th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 32nd Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia July 12-16, 1998 , July 1998 , pp. 162 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

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References

1. Fitzgerald, R., Keil, K. and Heinrich, K. F. J., Science 159 (1968) 528. (My contribution to this work was marginal.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Condon, E. U. and Odishaw, H., Handbook of Physics, McGraw-Hill New York (1958) 9–122.Google Scholar

3. Heinrich, K. F. J., Advances in X-Ray Analysis, 3, Plenum Press New York (1961) 370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Castaing, R., Thesis, Univ. of Paris, June 8, 1951.Google Scholar

5. Duncumb, P., The Electron Microprobe, John Wiley & Sons New York (1966) 490.Google Scholar

6. Duncumb, P., X-Ray Optics and X-Ray Microanalysis, Academic Press New York (1963) 431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Dolby, R. M., ibid., p. 483.Google Scholar

8. Myklebust, R. L. and Thome, B. B., A Fortran Version of the Quantitative Energy-Dispersive Electron Beam X-Ray Analysis Program FRAME C, NBS Tech. Note 1200 (1984).Google Scholar

9. Fiori, C. E. et al., DESK TOP SPECTRUM ANALYZER v. 2.5, NIST-0NIH Std. Ref. Database NIST Gaithersburg, MD.Google Scholar

10. Myklebust, R. L. et al., Proc. Annual Conference of MAS, 12 (1977) 27A–27G.Google Scholar