A new imaging modality to capture electrons and X-rays enabling real-time “elemental imaging.”

Speaker: David Richards, Product Specialist, Oxford Instruments

Oxford Intstruments Unity Device

Historically, capturing electron images and energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS) data required two subsequent steps and often took minutes to collect valuable maps even with large area EDS detectors.  Finding an area of interest within a sample involved a cycle of hunting-and-pecking for potentially interesting data using the grayscale electron image.  This methodology was time-consuming and could result in missing critical information that wasn’t revealed in the electron imaging alone.

In this talk we will present a new technique that simultaneously collects backscatter electrons and X-rays coined “BEX Imaging”.  Key to this technique is a unique detector that is positioned under the pole piece of the SEM.  This geometry allows significantly enhanced x-ray data collection and eliminates lost data from shadowing.  Users will now see elemental data in color as they scan their sample enabling them to find relevant areas for further analysis.  Some specific examples include locating contamination in raw materials for quality assurance; examination of chemistry in fracture surfaces; and rapid, full-scale analysis of larger samples.

With the advent of BEX imaging, the vicious cycle of guess-and-check analysis can be broken.  Important information is quickly and reliably identified without missing key details.  BEX imaging offers a paradigm shift in the microanalysis community as we go from grayscale to colored elemental images.

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