Development of an on-demand beam pulsing system for Pixe-analysis of thick targets

  • Mohammed A.S. Armaghani

    Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

    Abstract

    This work concerns the developnent of a proton irduced X-ray emission (PIXE) analysis system and a multi-sample scattering chamber facility.
    The characteristics of the beam pulsing system and its counting rate capabilities were evaluated by observing the ion-induced X-ray emission from pure thick copper targets, with and without beam pulsing
    operation. The characteristic X-rays were detected with a high resolution Si(Li) detector coupled to a rrulti-channel analyser.
    The removal of the pile-up continuum by the use of the on-demand beam pulsing is clearly demonstrated in this work. This new on-demand
    pu1sirg system with its counting rate capability of 25, 18 and 10 kPPS corresponding to 2, 4 am 8 usec main amplifier time constant respectively enables thick targets to be analysed more readily.
    Reproducibility tests of the on-demard beam pulsing system operation were checked by repeated measurements of the system throughput curves, with and without beam pulsing. The reproducibility of the analysis performed using this system was also checked by repeated measurements of the intensity ratios from a number of standard binary alloys during the experimental work.
    A computer programme has been developed to evaluate the calculations of the X-ray yields from thick targets bornbarded by protons, taking into account the secondary X-ray yield production due to
    characteristic X-ray fluorescence from an element energetically higher than the absorption edge energy of the other element present in the
    target. This effect was studied on metallic binary alloys such as Fe/Ni and Cr/Fe.
    The quantitative analysis of Fe/Ni and Cr/Fe alloy samples to determine their elemental composition taking into account the enhancement has been demonstrated in this work. Furthermore, the
    usefulness of the Rutherford backscattering (R.B.S.) technique to obtain the depth profiles of the elements in the upper micron of the sample is
    discussed.
    Date of AwardMay 1985
    Original languageEnglish

    Keywords

    • pixe
    • proton induced x-rays
    • thick target analysis
    • thick binary alloys analysis

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