Void and cavity determination in micro-PIXE analysis of composed material using binocular detectors: A computational study

This study presents a new method to determine the location, size and depth of the pores in the material that is based on the asymmetry in the X-ray yield induced by proton micro-beam acquired in samples by a pair of X-ray detectors.

sp0010^>Most of the samples have cavities within their structures that may affect the quantitative elemental concentration. Although, there are several methods to measure the porosity that are based on a physical fact. Here, we demonstrate a study that is based on the lack of X-ray absorption induced by proton along the void region. In fact, we have different X-ray absorption along the sample which results in asymmetry X-ray yield in two spectrometers positioned at backward of the probing beam. The presented approach introduces an asymmetry factor of the X-ray intensity in each of the detector to obtain an image asymmetry map.

sp0015^>Our calculation was employed on silicon-based devices to estimate the size of the proposed cavity and the localized depth of the hole in composed material in micro-PIXE analysis. It was deduced that the presented approach is sensitive to the depth and the size of the hole in the composed material.