The Determination of the Efficiency of Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometers by a New Reference Material

Abstract

A calibration procedure for the detection efficiency of energy dispersive X-ray spectrometers (EDS) used in combination with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) for standardless electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) is presented. The procedure is based on the comparison of X-ray spectra from a reference material (RM) measured with the EDS to be calibrated and a reference EDS. The RM is certified by the line intensities in the X-ray spectrum recorded with a reference EDS and by its composition. The calibration of the reference EDS is performed using synchrotron radiation at the radiometry laboratory of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt. Measurement of RM spectra and comparison of the specified line intensities enables a rapid efficiency calibration on most SEMs. The article reports on studies to prepare such a RM and on EDS calibration and proposes a methodology that could be implemented in current spectrometer software to enable the calibration with a minimum of operator assistance.

Calculation of X‐ray tube spectra by means of photon generation yields and a modified Kramers background for side‐window X‐ray tubes

“…The spectrometer, with which all the measurements in this work were performed, was calibrated in terms of its efficiency as described by Alvisi et al . This procedure consists of the comparison of X‐ray spectra of a dedicated reference material (RM) taken with a calibrated reference spectrometer and the spectrometer to be calibrated.…”

X-ray scattering in X-ray fluorescence spectra with X-ray monochromatic, polarised excitation – Modelling, experiment, and Monte-Carlo simulation

“…The EDS was calibrated up to 60 keV by using synchrotron radiation from the electron storage ring BESSY II [8]. Hence, both detector efficiency and spectrometer response functions are well-known [9][10][11]. The EDS detector has been placed at different selected positions so that the direction of the polarisation vector is always parallel to the scattering plane, which is equivalent to the horizontal plane.…”

“…4 the specimen toward the detector entrance have been multiplied with the known spectrometer efficiency and finally convoluted with the spectrometer response functions. The spectrometer employed is fully characterised and calibrated [8][9][10][11].…”

Quantum efficiency measurements of an x-ray charge-coupled device in the 2–10 keV spectral region by means of a double crystal monochromator coupled to an x-ray tube

“…In Fig. 5, we plotted this theoretical curve in dashes on which we added the calibrated curve of the same detector established by Alvisi et al [10] at the radiometry laboratory of the Physikalisch Technische Bundesanstalt using synchrotron radiation. This figure shows that above 1 keV, the theoretical curve agrees very well with the experimental calibration.…”

“…Comparison between theoretical efficiency curve and experimental curve of the same SDD detector established by Alvisi et al[10].…”