Equipment
Four primary components of the EDS setup are
- the excitation source (electron beam or x-ray beam)
- the X-ray detector
- the pulse processor
- the analyzer.
Electron beam excitation is used in electron microscopes, scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEM). X-ray beam excitation is used in X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometers. A detector is used to convert X-ray energy into voltage signals; this information is sent to a pulse processor, which measures the signals and passes them onto an analyzer for data display and analysis. The most common detector now is Si(Li) detector cooled to cryogenic temperatures with liquid nitrogen; however newer systems are often equipped with silicon drift detectors (SDD) with Peltier cooling systems.
Read more about this topic: Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy
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