Hi everyone - I wasn't sure if starting a new thread on the same topic is what you do on this forum (some places prefer you not create new threads), so please forgive me if I've got this wrong here!
Using NIST DTSA-II, I have been working towards getting some compositions of thin films from EDX measurements on those films, using reference spectra of elemental standards that I have measured with the same system and conditions. So I now have EDX data of my Co2MnAl films (where I know the thicknesses with a reasonable accuracy, these are ~50-100 nm) deposited on MgO, and separately I have EDX spectra from Co, Mn and Al standards, as well as from a blank MgO substrate.
I have tried to use the NIST-DTSA-II quantification alien to fit the film composition using the measured reference spectra. This does not work - an error is reported after choosing the spectrum to fit. That may be unsurprising since there appears to be no specific quantification option for fitting to a model of a film on a substrate. But does anyone know what user Pointman would have done in this thread
http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=726.msg4478#msg4478 that seemed to get it to work?
In case that's a fool's errand, my second question relates to NicholasRitchie's remark from a year ago:
DTSA-II doesn't support quantification of supported thin film samples - only bulk samples or unsupported thin films.
However, you can take the k-ratios from the report and input them into another program (maybe CalcZAF or GMRFilm) to extract the composition.
I have installed CalcZAF and started playing with inputting k-ratios to then get a composition from them, but what report are these k-ratios from? Is it the report from the successful fit that Pointman managed above, or something else?
And lastly, about Ben Buse's most recent post:
If you simulate TiN film on Si substrate (using which ever monte carlo package you like). Then you simulate the standards you used for the EDS analysis - e.g. simulate Ti metal for Ti, Si metal for Si and what ever N standard.
Then you calculate simulated kratios - simulated Ti intensity in TiN/Si divided by simulated Ti in Ti metal.
Then you can compare the simulated kratios with the measured kratios. If thickness and composition correct should agree.
You can then do simulated kratios for different thicknesses and compare to measured kratio and see which gives best agreement.
To get the measured k ratios, I need the intensity of the measured peaks from the film and from the standards (to find their ratio, and compare to the ratio of the simulated peak intensities). Can the measured intensities be found using the NIST-DTSA-II software somehow, or do I have to get the integrated intensity of these peaks from a separate program that can do it, like Originlab?
Thanks in advance for the help - hopefully these questions need only pretty simple answers, and then I can give the standards-based quantification a go!