TY - JOUR A1 - Procop, Mathias A1 - Terborg, R. T1 - Measurement and calculation of x-ray production efficiencies for copper, zirconium, and tungsten JF - Microscopy and microanalysis N2 - Electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) is based on physical relations between measured X-ray intensities of characteristic lines and their Xray production efficiency, which depends on the specimen composition. The quality of the analysis results relies on how realistically the physical relations describe the generation and emission of X-rays. Special experiments are necessary to measure X-ray production efficiencies. A challenge in these experiments is the determination of the detection efficiency of the spectrometer as a function of the photon energy. An energy-dispersive spectrometer was used in this work, for which the efficiency was determined at metrological synchrotron beamlines with an accuracy of ±2%. X-ray production efficiencies for the L series and the Kα series of copper and zirconium and for the M and L series of tungsten were determined at energies up to 30 keV in a scanning electron microscope. These experimental values were compared with calculated X-ray production efficiencies using physical relations and material constants applied in EPMA. The objective of the comparison is the further improvement of EPMA algorithms as well as extending the available database for X-ray production efficiencies. Experimental data for the X-ray production efficiency are also useful for the assessment of spectrum simulation software. KW - Copper KW - Electron probe microanalysis KW - Tungsten KW - X-ray production efficiency KW - Zirconium PY - 2022 DO - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927622012351 VL - 28 IS - 6 SP - 1865 EP - 1877 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-55711 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Terborg, R. A1 - Procop, Mathias T1 - Theoretical calculation and experimental determination of x-ray production efficiencies for copper, zirconium, and tungsten JF - Microscopy and microanalysis N2 - The X-ray intensities of the K-, L- and M-lines of copper, zirconium and tungsten have been measured with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer of known efficiency as function of photon energy. X-ray production efficiencies were determined from the measured intensities for Kα- and L-series of Cu and Zr and for the L- and M-series of W. These data were compared to calculated X-ray production efficiencies based on the widely used matrix correction models of Pouchou and Pichoir (XPP) and Bastin (PROZA96). Our results indicate that a replacement of the stopping power in the PROZA96 algorithm by expressions of Joy and Jablonski has only a minor influence on the calculated X-ray production efficiencies. In contrast, the modifications of the ionization cross-section show a stronger effect. We replaced the ionization cross-sections for K lines of the PROZA96 algorithm with different models. The results for L- and M-Lines are different. For the L-lines of Cu the original XPP and PROZA96 models show the best agreement while using the Bote cross-sections result in an overestimation. For the Zr-L and W-L1, -L2, -L3 X-ray production efficiencies, the Bote cross-sections lead to a significant improvement compared to all other models. The original XPP model represents the best agreement for the M5 efficiencies but underestimates the M4 efficiencies. There is no superior model or modification because the parameter sets in the models need to be aligned to each other. However, using the ionization cross-sections of Bote, which are based on quantum mechanical calculations, show promising results in many cases. KW - X-ray production efficiency KW - EPMA KW - Copper KW - Zirconium KW - Tungsten PY - 2023 DO - https://doi.org/10.1093/micmic/ozad067.110 SN - 1435-8115 VL - 29 IS - Supplement 1 SP - 245 EP - 246 PB - Oxford University Press CY - Oxford AN - OPUS4-58339 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -