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.
?
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 If a piece of information is incorrect, a link outdated, or the presentation choppy or unclear, the user can just click "Edit Page" at the bottom and then fix the mistake.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
?
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
?
Resources
Videos
Articles
?
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
?
Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Thanks Steve. That slide and your explanation is most useful. Dud Sent: Monday, January 20, 2020 6:02 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [XRF] XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN Hey Dud, it is due to
By
Dude
·
#549
·
|
Re: White Signal bassetite
OMG! Dud Sent: Monday, January 20, 2020 6:14 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Mike Loughlin; Steve Dubyk Subject: Re: [XRF] White Signal bassetite Here it is again.
By
Dude
·
#548
·
|
Re: White Signal bassetite
Here it is again.
By
Charles David Young
·
#547
·
|
Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Hey Dud, it is due to the ionic radius and crystal structure that this occurs. Monazite is monoclinic and incorporates the LHEE, xenotime is tetragonal and incorporates the HREE; both are phosphates.
By
WILLIAM S Dubyk
·
#546
·
|
Re: White Signal bassetite
Send the mca file Dud Sent: Monday, January 20, 2020 2:22 PM To: [email protected]; Mike Loughlin; Steve Dubyk Subject: [XRF] White Signal bassetite This is a scan that ran for 1 1/2 days using Am241 to
By
Dude
·
#545
·
|
Re: White Signal bassetite
charlesdavidyoung@...> wrote:
By
Charles David Young
·
#544
·
|
Re: White Signal bassetite
Sorry I forgot the .mca. I'll send it in a bit. charlesdavidyoung@...> escribi¨®:
By
Charles David Young
·
#543
·
|
White Signal bassetite
This is a scan that ran for 1 1/2 days using Am241 to excite. It has a lot of stuff in it and I will need everybody's help to interpret it (i.e. Dud). One complicating factor is that even with the
By
Charles David Young
·
#542
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
This is the little portable exciter. It is a mini-X-Ray tube made by Kevex, controlled by a LIXI power supply. When coupled with the LIXI X-Ray Intensifier Viewer, it used as a C-Arm, to take
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#541
·
|
Re: Currency XRF Quiz results
Thanks for the detailed analysis Dudley!George
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#540
·
|
Currency XRF Quiz results
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2020 11:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [XRF] Currency XRF Quiz Here¡¯s Geo¡¯s 1958 copper nickel in log space. What do we have here? Anyone?, anyone? Beuller?... Beuller?
By
Dude
·
#538
·
|
Re: XRF - comparing Dud's with my Si-PIN
Steve, I don't understand everything you said but are any of my cyrtolites examples of this? Charles El El s¨¢b, ene. 18, 2020 a la(s) 10:09 p. m., Dude <dfemer@...> escribi¨®:
By
Charles David Young
·
#534
·
|
Re: Currency XRF Quiz
A dirty old nickel that was in the bottom of an ammo box?
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#533
·
|
Re: Currency XRF Quiz
I am not at my computer today but I would imagine Ka1 Ka2 Kb1 Charles
By
Charles David Young
·
#532
·
|
Currency XRF Quiz
Here¡¯s Geo¡¯s 1958 copper nickel in log space. What do we have here? Anyone?, anyone? Beuller?... Beuller? Dud Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2020 9:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [XRF] Currency
By
Dude
·
#531
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
Yes I used collimator, filters and shielding. Pictures exist of all and will be posted as I flesh out the topics. I did these currency scans 6 years ago in my portable radlab in NV, and not really
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#530
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
See the info bar on the right- 300 seconds accumulated (live) time. Real time (clock time)= ~600 seconds due to deadtime. 10 microamps is about as low as one of these tubes can be adjusted to. I
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#529
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
Charles , He asked for 300 secs of live time which required 623 secs of real time due to high count rate pile up . The count rate was way too high with a dead time of 46%. Dead time should be kept
By
Dude
·
#528
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
How long does it take to get those kind of counts? El El dom, ene. 19, 2020 a la(s) 9:59 a. m., <GEOelectronics@...> escribi¨®:
By
Charles David Young
·
#527
·
|
Re: Currency XRF
1958_Cu-Ni-Jefferson_Nickel-SDD-50kVp_10uA
By
GEOelectronics@...
·
#526
·
|