Comparison of various ions for use in heavy ion induced X-ray emission

The sensitivity and general usability of heavy ion induced X-ray emission for simultaneous elemental analysis with other ion beam methods has been investigated as a function of projectile atomic number. The variation of sensitivity and background radiation as a function of projectile energy was also studied. The ions selected consisted of 7Li(8-18 MeV), 12C(10-26 MeV), 16O (12-32 MeV), 28Si (16-28 MeV) and 80Se (24 MeV). The ion energies used are also commonly employed in heavy ion backscattering spectrometry and elastic recoil detection analysis. The HIXE results of simultaneous determination of trace elements with Z=15, 20, 22, 26 and 82 in thick samples were compared with the standard PIXE analysis by 3 MeV protons. To obtain information on any variations in the sensitivity on sample matrix, commercial standard samples of NBS River Sediment-2704, NBS Bituminous Coal-1623b, NBS Silicon-Aluminium alloy-87a and IAEA Animal Bone H-5 were used for which the elemental concentrations are known. (orig.)