EUROPEAN CONGRESS AND EXHIBITION ON ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES - EUROMAT 2021

Investigating and analyzing materials - especially comprising light elements - at both high spatial and spectral resolution has always been a challenge requiring sophisticated equipment such as UHV Auger microprobe systems or transmission electron microscopes equipped with an electron energy loss spectrometer. Moreover, these methods need advanced sample preparation techniques and are only suitable to analyze extremely thin layers.
In order to pave the way for easily accessible high-end spectroscopy of even bulk materials, JEOL has developed a new type of wavelength dispersive spectrometer (WDS) that can be mounted on common scanning electron microscopes or electron microprobes. It utilizes a variable grating, allowing the efficient and parallel collection of very low-energy X-rays (so called “soft” X-rays). This new Soft X-ray Emission Spectrometer (SXES) not only exhibits high spectral resolution (0.3eV) which allows, e.g., for the Nitrogen Kα and Titanium Lℓ line to be separated, but also ultra-high sensitivity to detect light elements down to Lithium to facilitate battery material research. Especially, those light elements like Beryllium or Boron can be detected at low 2-digit ppm concentrations.
Additionally, the spectrometer is suitable for chemical bonding state analysis. Differences between conduction band and valence band electrons can be observed as long as they emit X-rays allowing the distinction between bonding and crystal structure in samples containing the same elements. As proof, spectra shifts when observing hexagonal and cubic boron nitride are presented as well as mappings of Fe2B and FeB coatings.
Among other examples, we will also show results on Nitrogen trace element analysis in steel, differentiation of polymer species and characterization of doped amorphous carbon layers.