XRF Wiki
Welcome to the XRF Wiki. This Wiki is a repository of information contributed by members of [email protected]. Members can view and edit the pages. The pages are currently not viewable by the public. The pages below represent a rough overview of the technology and techniques associated with X-Ray Florescence Spectroscopy as well as serving as a place for members to organize the spectra that they have contributed to the forum.?
As a starting point, the pages will be populated by information taken from member posts from the past few years - with references/attribution. Perhaps in time, these pages can be edited by members to make them more complete and less choppy. Members can also edit this page, making the structure of the content more organized.?
Pages can contain information about a particular topic, links to relevant resources (such as manuals, research papers, etc.), links to relevant forum discussions on the topic, book titles, or anything that might be useful.
What follows is very much a work in progress.
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Adding to the Wiki
For those unfamiliar with the Wiki phenomenon, it is basically a user editable encyclopedia. The idea is that there are pages with different articles, which the user can read and also choose to edit if desired. If a piece of information is incorrect, a link outdated, or the presentation choppy or unclear, the user can just click "Edit Page" at the bottom and then fix the mistake. There is also a "Page History," so if you a user were to make a mistake or maliciously destroy a page (which wouldn't happen here) an editor can come along and restore the page to a previous version.?
If you have used MediaWiki (the engine that runs behind the scene of Wikipedia.org) you will be familiar with a certain style of creating an article. There are tags that one uses to change the formatting of the parts of the article. The Wiki on Groups.io uses a different background engine and so the standard MediaWiki syntax does not apply here. Rather, the page is edited using the same tools as one would use to compose a message on the forums. If you are a programmer or someone who likes using the tagged syntax directly, you can access the underlying page source code, be activating the advanced editing toolbar (the icon with three lines on the far right of the basic toolbar) and then clicking on the source code icon <> on the far right of the Advance Editing Toolbar. You will immediately notice that the underlying source code is HTML. Most things can be done just by using the various icons, but advanced features like table can only be implemented by manually writing the source code. (Although there are website available that will generate the source code for you through a graphical interface.)
Here are some useful resources from Groups.io:?
Wiki Guide for Users and Editors
Message Composition Tips and Tricks
Overview of XRF
X-Ray Florescence vs. X-Ray Diffraction
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Hardware
This section describes the hardware used for XRF. We will describe the basic theory of operation of each stage in the processing tool chain and then present different commercial systems that are available as these systems are often integrated together.
[Editor note: General theory needs to be in an independent page separate from specific manufacturer information.
[Editor note - question: Should this be arranged by category, e.g detectors, preamps, etc or by manufacturer with the manufacturers product line on one page. Perhaps it's best to put a list of products with theory but the details of the products on a manufacture page...]
Detectors?- what's available, theory of operation, tradeoffs
Detector Cooling?- keeping detectors cool to avoid thermal noise and keeping the TEC from overheating
Preamps?- theory of operation, brief summary of what out there (and what not to do - such as trying to use a PMT preamp for a SiPIN diode...)
Pulse Processing Theory - high level overview of the stages of going from detector pulse to channel peaks on the computer
Commercial Systems - many commercial systems are integrated so it seems to make sense to present, for example all Amptek products together. [question: are their other affordable integrated systems besides Amptek?]
Amptek XRF System
Activation Sources - what do you use to make the sample fluoresce (that's within the amateur budget and doesn't require special licensing)
Software
- Device Control Software - what do you use to collect the data from the detector system
- XRF Analysis Software - what do you use to analyze the data, especially for quantitative measurements (composition percentages, thin film measurement)
- Free Software Tools
Note: there may be software packages that possess some or all of these characteristics.
Materials Spectra
Metals Spectra
Historic/Archeological Spectra
Reference Materials Spectra
Household Objects Spectra
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Resources
Videos
Articles
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Non-XRF Techniques
Gamma Spectroscopy
Raman Spectroscopy
FTIR - Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy
Inductively Coupled Atomic Emission Spectroscopy
Spark Emission Spectroscopy
Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy
LIBS - Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy
Photoacoustic Spectroscopy
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Re: Currency XRF
.mca data file for war penny and nickel above
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GEOelectronics@...
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#525
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Steve, Zircon HREE's are interesting. Why do the heavies kick up in the xenotime. Are there other zircons in the area that still hold the HREE without any exsolution and at what concentration? How
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Dude
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#523
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Strickland
Charles, Attached is a bigger blowup of the Strickland. The Cursor is at Ti Ka 4.5 keV. The Si Escape peak is 9 channels to the right at 4.66 keV (on the right side of the 2 equal sized peaks past the
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Dude
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#522
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Here are a couple of examples of how messy these minerals can be. The zircon from the Coats is a variety called cyrtolite. If you look at the photos at the bottom of the sheet you can see how xenotime
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WILLIAM S Dubyk
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#521
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Geo, I would venture to say precise quantitative analysis is beyond the reach of the professionals as well. For a simple matrix it works fine but for a complicated matrix like rocks and junk it
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Dude
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#520
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Charles, I have pretty much everything in terms of base metals and REE oxides as well as base and REE metals. Some more dangerous than others. I did not get the close up Ti email that Geo got. Send me
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Dude
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#519
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
"Based on the reported percentages the assay you are looking at was done using the Soils mode which is used when looking at PPM level concentrations. The Soils mode will well over report percent level
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GEOelectronics@...
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#518
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Charles, do you have pure metal element samples? I can give you titanium and a few more for use as calibration points.By the way the needed correct 5V power supply arrived for my SI-PIN, so It will be
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GEOelectronics@...
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#517
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
So qualitatively the results from both XRFs seem to be similar. I will be looking at other specimens that you analyzed as well to see if they jive with my setup. So what about the FeSi escape vs TiKa1
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Charles David Young
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#516
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Currency XRF
Setup is Amptek 1-2-3 SDD Sensor/MCA, the X-Ray tube excited ones were with a LIXI-Kevex microfocus low power X-Ray tube, parameters listed in the scans. Current? settings are always in microamps not
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GEOelectronics@...
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#515
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Charles, Based on the reported percentages the assay you are looking at was done using the Soils mode which is used when looking at PPM level concentrations. The Soils mode will well over report
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Dude
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#514
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
BTW, Y PPM = 279 = 0.0279% charlesdavidyoung@...> wrote:
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Charles David Young
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#513
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Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
BTW, the small peak at about the FeSi escape actually aligns better with TiKa1. Dud's XRF shows 0.6% Ti. Are we sure this is not TiKa1? Charles charlesdavidyoung@...> wrote:
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Charles David Young
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#512
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XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Nearly 2 years ago (5/23/18) Dud was kind enough to shoot some of my specimens with his XRF "gun", which has a pinpoint xray source. Several of my rocks were found in the rubble piles of the local
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Charles David Young
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#511
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Re: FW: microlite from Strickland
This is not unusual, as a matter of fact, they are always there. I keep a hand calculator on the counting bench and a cheat sheet of Si and Cd (and even Te) Ka and Kb energies to locate them, below
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GEOelectronics@...
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#506
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Re: FW: microlite from Strickland
BTW, do we need to worry about the Si escape peaks from other elements as well? charlesdavidyoung@...> wrote:
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Charles David Young
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#505
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Re: microlite from Strickland
Have you done a "background" scan of just the Am source? Mine is mounted on brass with a lead backstop and I see Fe, Cu, Zn, Np and Pb X-Rays It would be interesting to do a scan with and without a
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GEOelectronics@...
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#504
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Re: FW: microlite from Strickland
FeKa1=6.4 - SiKa1=1.740 = 4.66 = LaLa1=4.651 Good catch, Dud! I will have to be on the lookout for that one. In fact I'll add it to my isotopes list to remind me. Charles
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Charles David Young
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#503
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Re: microlite from Strickland
I noticed that too, and by the time it gets to 59.5 it is really muted. This is same with all the silicon based detectors I've used. It's a matter of how much mass is there to react and absorb the
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GEOelectronics@...
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#502
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Re: FW: microlite from Strickland
Charles, As it turns out the ¡°Ti¡± peak is neither Ti or La it¡¯s the Si escape peak from Fe. After looking at Steve¡¯s assay showing Ti I went looking for that and forgot about escape peaks. The
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Dude
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#501
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