Nuclear Microprobe and Micro-PIXE Analysis of Thick Target: Program and Its Applications

Abstract

PIXE (Particle Induced X-ray Emission), mainly Proton Induced X-ray Emission, has been developed into a well established technique for elemental analysis, especially for trace elemental analysis down to ppm or even ppb level. Nuclear Microprobe is a quickly developing technique around the world for 2 dimensional or even 3 dimensional element analysis if several nuclear analytical techniques, such as Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) can be available at the same time. The present resolution of NMP can be down to less than 1μm. To thick target analysis, i.e., the energy loss effect and the consequent X-ray cross section Change with the depth can not be neglected, therefore we have to consider the process of particle interactions with atoms in detail. In this article, NMP (Nuclear Micro-Probe) and micro-PIXE analysis of thick target, which are mainly involved into the process of ions interaction with atoms, are reviewed on the basis of work what we have done at Fudan University. The software package TSPIXE (PIXE analysis of Thick Sample), which includes different versions for different applications, developed at Fudan University for quantitative analysis of thick target and simulation of PIXE and micro-PIXE spectra are described and its performance is demonstrated too. The TSPIXE package, which includes TSPIXE version I, version II, version III and TSμPIXE, was written in FORTRAN and C computer language and can be run at PC computer under MSDOS or WINDOWS environment. From the different demonstrations and applications we can see the package is very useful to quantitative analysis of thick samples and to understand the relationships between elemental X-ray intensity distributions and concentration distributions, sample structure, beam size and etc.