Quantitative Electron Probe Microanalysis: Fifty Years of Developments in the Application of Castaing's Z and A Corrections

Published

October 16, 2008

Author(s)

J T. Armstrong

Abstract

The corrections for atomic number and absorption effects in electron microprobe analysis proposed by Castaing in his Ph.D. thesis have been adapted and re-adapted, refined, and re-refined in a variety of ways by numerous investigators over the intervening 50 years to the present, but their general nature remains remarkably similar to Castaing's original formulations. Many studies have appeared proposing new correction formulations and comparing the results using selected experimental data sets. In some cases, investigators have proposed modifying the fundamental constants (e.g., mass absorption coefficients and mean ionization potentials) to better match a correction model to the analytical data. This paper evaluates the various major atomic number and absorption correction expressions that have been in significant use over the years or are actively used today for correction of microprobe data. It will determine the degree of progress we have made in refining the corrections and the magnitude of the corrections and their uncertainties that still remain for various analytical systems.

Citation

Microscopy and Microanalysis

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

absorption correction, atomic number correction, Castaing, correction procedures, electron microprobe

Citation

Armstrong, J. (2008), Quantitative Electron Probe Microanalysis: Fifty Years of Developments in the Application of Castaing's Z and A Corrections, Microscopy and Microanalysis (Accessed December 12, 2024)