Effects of primary beam incidence in microanalysis

It has been shown that in electron probe microanalysis the massic concentration of the emitter element in the pattern and in the reference are approximately equal to the ratio of the corresponding intensity X generated by the target. The author has attempted to calculate the intensity X emitted by an element in a very weak concentration in the target and to obtain the conditions for optimizing this intensity. The fluorescence correction is assumed to be insignificant. A formula is obtained which correlates the measured intensities at the microprobe to the true concentration of the diluted element. (Auth.)