Quantitative chemical analysis
The JEOL JSM IT800HL Scanning Electron Microscope is equipped with 3 detectors from Oxford Instruments, the Ultim Max EDS detector, Wave WDS detector, and Symmetry EBSD detector. The Ultim Max 100 mm2 Energy Dispersive Spectrometry (EDS) is one of the most advanced EDS systems worldwide, capable of high energy resolution and high total count rates. This detector represents a key component of many research projects at UC Berkeley, with quantitative spot analysis, linescans, and chemical maps (see details here) all used to characterize sample chemistry.
Quantitative spot analyses
Thanks to the incredible work of PhD student Sarah Shi we have recently created and characterized a new block of microanalytical standards. To examine inter-laboratory variations, we sent these standards to several Electron Microprobe (EPMA) facilities across the country. The data from our SEM-EDS system is comparable to the data from EPMA analyses in terms of the analytical accuracy. Furthermore, at similar operating conditions we have shown that SEM-EDS analysis can outperform traditional EPMA analysis in terms of analytical precision! If you have materials that you want to quantify the chemistry, SEM-EDS analyses are a highly recommended alternative to EPMA!
Linescans
One of the other major benefits of EDS analysis is to quickly collect chemical zoning data across mineral phases and, owing to the high-quality imaging capabilities of the JEOL SEM, link zoning data to high resolution Backscatter Electron images. We regularly collect chemical zoning data across mineral phases using the ‘linescan’ feature of the Oxford Instruments AZtec software and have developed a series of simple Python scripts to help users plot and visualize these results.
