Electron Probe Energy
Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS)

Electron-probe X-ray fluorescence (EP-XRF) analysis has been widely used in scanning electron microscopy instrumentation for elemental analysis of specimens. In the SEM, the surface of a solid sample is excited with a highly-focused energetic beam of electrons, which induces X-ray fluorescence from the elements within the sample.

Polycapillary focusing optics can be used to focus emitted X-ray fluorescence from the small electron excitation area onto the detector to increase the efficiency of collection of emitted X-ray fluorescence. This greatly increases the elemental discrimination and detection sensitivity. This has been shown to be important for applications such as microcalorimetry.