3D Micro PIXE—a new technique for depth-resolved elemental analysis

Materials characterization by synchrotron x-ray microprobes and nanoprobes

“…High-energy beams (from a few MeV to a few hundred of MeV) are used for ion beam analysis (IBA) to investigate, in a nondestructive fashion, the elemental composition and the electronic properties of materials, in the μmand sub-μm scale (Tsuji et al, 2008(Tsuji et al, , 2012Avasthi and Mehta, 2011). Owing to the charged nature of ions, the use of electromagnetic optics is possible to obtain focused ion beams which are typically of a micrometric size, but can reach the 10 nm scale (Orloff, Swanson, and Utlaut, 1996;Sakai et al, 2002;van Kan et al, 2005;Karydas et al, 2007;Tsuji et al, 2008Tsuji et al, , 2012Siegele et al, 2009;Rothermel et al, 2010;Fujita, Ishii, and Ogawa, 2011;Gordillo et al, 2011;Kamiya et al, 2011;Rout et al, 2013;Kada et al, 2014;Sorieul et al, 2014). The actual spatial resolution depends on the lateral straggling of the ion beam in the sample, which depends on the ion mass and energy as well as on the sample nature.…”

“…The same approach was also employed to image the spatial distribution of both short-range charge-density-wave "puddles" (domains with only a few wavelengths) and quenched disorder in HgBa 2 CuO 4þy (Campi et al, 2015), the single-layer cuprate with the highest critical temperature (Karpinski et al, 1999). They highlighted the fact that even in this "ideal" single-layer system at optimum doping (T c ¼ 95 K), the charge-density-wave order self-organizes FIG.…”

The new external ion beam analysis setup at the Demokritos Tandem accelerator and first applications in cultural heritage

“…PIXE provides multielemental, simultaneous analysis of elements with atomic number ranging from Z = 11 (Sodium) to Z = 92 (Uranium), with lower limits of detection down to the few lg/g range. However, novel methodologies reported for the PIXE analysis (3D Micro-PIXE [17], differential PIXE [18][19][20][21][22]) can also contribute towards elemental profiling studies up to a depth of several tens of lm. RBS can provide quantitative information of most elements in a near-surface region that it is either structured as a sequence of layers with different composition and thickness or presenting elemental concentration gradients due to the selective depletion or enrichment of particular elements including those with low atomic number (such as oxygen and carbon).…”

Metallomics, elementomics, and analytical techniques

“…Further, 3D micro-PIXE also has been developed to perform depth analysis recently [107,108] and has the spatial resolution of 4 µm by using characteristic Ti-K-X rays (4.558 keV) produced by 3 MeV protons with beam spot size of ~1 µm [109].…”