New Analysis Kit Enables Efficient Measurement of 1 mm or Smaller Contaminants with Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometers

Shimadzu Corporation has released the Small Spot Analysis Kit for analysis of small contaminants, with a less than 1 mm diameter, or for analyzing the plating thickness of small areas, using the EDX-7000 or EDX-8000 energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometer.

The kit includes a collimator plate compatible with small spot analysis, which can collimate X-ray beams down to a 0.3 mm diameter. The kit also includes a sample observation camera that increases resolution by about 2.5 times. If a target area being analyzed is too smaller than the X-ray irradiation area, scattered X-rays from the outside of the target area make worse the resulting data. However, this kit makes it easier to accurately analyze the target area only by restricting the diameter of the irradiated area.

Contaminant analysis has become increasingly important for manufacturing and quality control departments in a wide variety of industries, such as foods, electrical/electronics, and raw materials. In the field of contaminant analysis, EDX spectrometers are mainly used to analyze metals, due to their performance for analyzing inorganic elements. Shimadzu EDX spectrometers are used in a wide variety of fields because of their superior general applicability and operability. With increasingly smaller target areas being analyzed, customers have submitted an increasing number of requests to use Shimadzu EDX spectrometers to accurately analyze even smaller samples.

In response to these requirements, Shimadzu developed the Small Spot Analysis Kit based on the concept of enabling higher-accuracy analysis of small spots without changing current operating methods. Shimadzu is working to provide solutions that support contaminant analysis.

The small spot collimator plate included in the kit can collimate X-ray beams down to a 0.3 mm diameter, while the standard minimum X-ray beam diameter provided by the EDX-7000/8000 is 1 mm. The smaller diameter enables more accurate analysis by irradiating only the area to be analyzed. The X-ray irradiation area can be switched between four diameters: 0.3 mm, 1 mm, 3 mm, or 10 mm. In addition, the internal sample observation camera can be replaced with the high-resolution camera included in the kit to increase sample image resolution by about 2.5 times. The high-resolution camera is especially useful for magnifying images of contaminants and other small samples or for saving analytical results with images.