Implementation of the phenomenon of total reflection for total reflection X-Ray fluorescence spectrometry technique simulation

Within the scientific research field, X-ray fluorescence spectrometry is a basic technique for chemical analysis of materials, allowing recognition and study of the elemental nature of a particular sample. With this technique, the researcher uses different devices such as X-ray tubes, radioactive sources, monochromators crystals, capillaries, slits and waveguides, Si-Li detectors and scintillators. Furthermore, one can provide these elements with different arrangements in order to obtain a better configuration. One of the X-ray fluorescence spectrometry variants is the total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. It is based on the optical phenomenon of total reflection observed when a radiation beam impinges on a surface below a critical angle. Two important characteristics of this technique are to minimize the generation of background derived from the reflector support and allow the radiation interaction with very thin samples (thickness between 100 nm and 15 μm). The goal of the paper is to show the computational modeling of the physical phenomenon of total reflection that enables the implementation of total reflection X-ray fluorescence spectrometry technique through the simulator developed at Institute of Physics of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro with parallel and distributed processing features. The simulator at hand is already available for implementation of energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Through it, they are shown three simulations, each based on a particular apparatus: a set of reflectors, a capillary and a waveguide with lucite reflectors. (author)