
Image of the ceramic sample analyzed.
Green squares indicate areas, where
spectra were obtained
This application example focuses on the analytical problem of standardless quantification in the low energy range. The challenge lies in absorption effects and in difficulties in background calculation due to high absorption edges and according to statistical error. The advanced light element quantification TQuant was used to solve this challenging problem.
The sample investigated is a sintered hard ceramic material, mainly composed of titanium di-boride (TiB2), titanium carbide (TiC), silicon carbide (SiC) and a number of minor constituents. A polished but uncoated section of this material was analyzed.
The task was to quantify the area spectra of the analysis locations shown in the figure above. The spectra were extracted from regions of same composition of a HyperMap that was acquired from the sample. The spectra of 16 pixels were combined to improve statistics, even so they contain only 5,000 to 9,000 counts, corresponding to less than 0.5 s measurement time. Five of these area spectra were quantified. The average values and deviations are listed below. "s" is the standard deviation, "Deviation" is the relative deviation, the difference between the quantification result and the expected stoichiometric value:
TiB2 quantification results | Expected / at.% | Measured / at.% | s / ±at. % | Deviation / % | |
---|
B | 66.7 | 68.1 | 0.7 | 2.1 |
Ti | 33.3 | 31.9 | 0.7 | -4.2 |
TiC quantification results | Expected / at.% | Measured / at.% | s / ±at. % | Deviation / % | |
---|
C | 50.0 | 49.8 | 1.2 | -0.4 |
Ti | 50.0 | 50.2 | 1.2 | 0.4 |
SiC quantification results | Expected / at.% | Measured / at.% | s / ±at. % | Deviation / % | |
---|
C | 50.0 | 50.9 | 1.1 | 1.8 |
Si | 50.0 | 49.1 | 1.1 | -1.8 |
The findings show that TQuant provides reliable standardless quantification results, even under the adverse measurement conditions described in this example.