X-Ray fluorescence and its applications

Ms. Pooja Yadav, is a project student working under the supervision of Prof. M. Saha Sarkar for her M.Sc final year project. Abstract: I worked on the X-Ray fluorescence which is a powerful and analytical technique for elemental analysis of any material. And my work was purely qualitative. My project work is roughly divided into 2 parts: First topic of my talk will be how we made our own set-up for the production of X-Ray fluorescence which included the following main components: X-Ray generator which worked as excitation source having variable parameters i.e. voltage and current which decides generation and intensity of XRF line and we also used radioactive source of Am-241for production of X-ray. Silicon pin-diode detector worked as detection instrument to detect X-Ray fluorescence produce by samples and it have some special feature. The spectra obtained from detector were analyzed by the multi channel analyzer and Amptek software. And we worked on fixing geometry for the set-up that was important task of the project by keeping in mind the gain, shaping time and dead time otherwise it would affect detector and analysis part also. And second part of the project includes the experimental work which consisted of data taking and how analysis was done: The approach for the first experiment was to identify the elements from the samples and also check the detection limit of the silicon pin-diode detector. The aim of second experiment was to revisit the Moseley’s law which is the proof of fundamental quantity, atomic number. And the goal of third experiment was to identify the elemental composition of archaeological old Indian coins and study the change in constituents of coins over time. While analyzing the spectra, it was found that many factors contribute to the analytical spectrum: for example interaction in the detector like sum peak for low concentration elements misidentified as energy peak of other element and identification of constituents present in minor or trace level is problematic, background spectrum line overlapped with minor or trace elements effect the result like these there many issues I will discuss in my talk. In the last I shall explain how X-Ray Fluorescence is a non-destructive testing technique and discuss their benefits.