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Characterizing an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer on an Analytical Electron Microscope

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Abstract

X-ray microanalysis in the analytical electron microscope is invariably performed with a Si(Li) or an intrinsic Ge (IG) energy dispersive spectrometer. Apart from the earliest electron microscope micro-analyzer instruments in the 1960s, which used a crystal or wavelength dispersive spectrometer, all commercial AEMs offer EDS as the only x-ray detector. The reason for this is the limited confines of the stage of a TEM to which the x-ray detector is interfaced when creating an AEM. The narrow polepiece gap of any TEM makes it impossible to get a detector closer to the specimen than about a centimeter. Consequently, the collection angle of the detector is small (typically 0.05–0.15 sr) thus limiting the x-ray counting statistics. Although small, the EDS collection angle is still very much larger than could be provided by a WDS. Since the x-ray count rate in AEMs is very low in the first place, because of the small probe currents and thin specimens, only an EDS can provide statistically meaningful x-ray data.

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Zemyan, S.M., Williams, D.B. (1995). Characterizing an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer on an Analytical Electron Microscope. In: Williams, D.B., Goldstein, J.I., Newbury, D.E. (eds) X-Ray Spectrometry in Electron Beam Instruments. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1825-9_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1825-9_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5738-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1825-9

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