Penelope/Penepma/Penfluor/Fanal Monte-Carlo Software and Physics

[Probeman]

It appears that the NBTH and NBPH parameters are based on the Penepma 2012 "bilayer.in" file which is the default input file for thin film calculations. Apparently the boys in Barcelona must have changed this parameter in Penepma 2016.

So the best solution is to simply edit the bilayer.in file for the new parameter. I've attached a new version below that should work with Penepma 2016 and will upload a new Penepma16.zip file with this modification.

All I did was remove these two lines:

NBTH   45                     [No. of bins for the polar angle THETA]
NBPH   30                   [No. of bins for the azimuthal angle PHI]

And replace them with this line:

NBANGL 45 30              [Nos. of bins for the angles THETA and PHI]

That should work.

[John Donovan]

OK, we've uploaded a ZIP file containing executable and support files for Penepma 2016. You can access the link on this page:

https://probesoftware.com/Technical.html

or you can just grab it with this direct link:

https://probesoftware.com/download/PENEPMA16.ZIP

Here are the short instructions:

Penepma 2016 is almost identical with Penepma 2012, except that it provides support for emission lines of Li, Be and B. However, Penepma 2016 is not distributed with CalcZAF/Standard because the physics database files for Penepma 2016 are *not* compatible with the Penfluor/Fanal secondary fluorescence application files. Therefore Penepma 2016 is a separate download (here) which can be unzipped and placed in a folder named UserData\Penepma16, if desired for Li, Be and B emission calculations. To utilize the Penepma GUI in the Standard application one should edit the following enties in their Probewin.ini file:

    PENDBASE_Path="C:\Userdata\Penepma16\Pendbase"
    PENEPMA_Path="C:\Userdata\Penepma16\Penepma"
    PENEPMA_Root="C:\Userdata\Penepma16"
    PENEPMA_PAR_Path="C:\Userdata\Penepma12\Penfluor"

The above path to the Penfluor files isn't changed because the Penfluor and Fanal programs won't work with the Penepma 2016 physics database files. 

We probably should re-do the code relating to the Penfluor path in CalcZAF, Standard and PFE, but right now if you want to run the Penfluor/Fanal GUI as described here:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=58.0

for secondary fluorescence calculations at boundaries, you'll need to re-edit the Penepma paths in the Probewin.ini file back to Penepma12.

In the meantime this Penepma16.ZIP file contains sub folders of output files for pure Li, Be and B at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 keV. See the Penepma16\penepma\Batch folder.

[jrminter]

Many thanks, John. You put a lot of work into this...

[Probeman]

Many thanks, John. You put a lot of work into this...

Thank-you John.

I should also mention that in order to calculate intensities down to 50 eV (necessary for Li ka), the number of secondaries generated are too large for the "forcing factor" arrays as specified by default in the Penepma GUI.

For example, here are the default forcing factors generated by selecting the "Optimize Production of Characteristic X-rays" option (from the Cu_Cha.in file):

       >>>>>>>> Interaction forcing.
IFORCE 1 1 4 -10    0.1 1.0           [KB,KPAR,ICOL,FORCER,WLOW,WHIG]
IFORCE 1 1 5 -400   0.1 1.0           [KB,KPAR,ICOL,FORCER,WLOW,WHIG]

It's the FORCER factor in red (-400) that causes the problem, so if you intend to calculate characteristic spectra down to 50 eV or so you should edit this number to -200 as seen here:

       >>>>>>>> Interaction forcing.
IFORCE 1 1 4 -10    0.1 1.0           [KB,KPAR,ICOL,FORCER,WLOW,WHIG]
IFORCE 1 1 5 -200   0.1 1.0           [KB,KPAR,ICOL,FORCER,WLOW,WHIG]


Just FYI.
john

[John Donovan]

As many of you know, a distribution of Penepma 2012 is included for use with the Penepma GUI in the Standard program.

Recently we completed modeling the pure elements from Li to Cm at electron beam energies from 5 to 30 keV in 5 keV steps utilizing 1 eV bins for fine spectral details. These pure element spectra are used by Probe for EPMA to create synthetic WDS spectra as described here:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=837.msg9198#msg9198

Also note that the spectra for Li, be and B were calculated utilizing Penepma 2016 which is not normally distributed, but see the previous two posts in this topic for instructions on downloading Penepma 2016 to your computer which can then be utilized with the Standard Penepma GUI.

Finally, once you are updated to the most recent Penepma distribution, the "pe-spect-01.dat" and "pe-intens-01.dat" files for each pure element are stored in these folders shown here:



To download the most recent version of the Penepma 2012 distribution, simply use the "Update Penepma Monte-Carlo Files Only" check box from the CalcZAF or Probe for EPMA Help menus as shown in this post:

https://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=366.msg1936#msg1936

[John Donovan]

By the way, each of these pure element Penepma simulations at 5, 10 15, 20, 25 and 30 keV (using 1 eV energy intervals), were run for 144,000 seconds or 40 hours each!

If anyone is interested in the complete output files, just let us know and I can upload a zip of everything for downloading.

[John Donovan]

As you know, the Penepma/Penfluor/Fanal executables can be compiled as 32 bit or 64 bit programs. However we only distribute the 32 bit executables in the CalcZAF.msi distribution, because Microsoft still supports 32 bit operating systems (32 bit executables will run on either 32 or 64 bit operating systems, but 64 bit executables will only run under 64 bit operating systems).

One thing that we have come across (very rarely) is that once in a while, some of these 32 bit versions (e.g., Penfluor/Fanal) produce an error during execution.  We have found that the same calculation using the 64 bit version does *not* produce any errors. However, as mentioned above, you must run the 64 bit Penepma/Penfluor/Fanal versions on a 64 bit operating system.

However, if you would like the 64 bit executables to run on your 64 bit operating system using the Standard GUI for Monte Carlo calculations, I have provided them as a ZIP attachment below. These exe files need to be extracted and copied to their respective application folders. They are generally:

Penepma.exe
C:\UserData\Penepma12\Penepma

Penfluor.exe
C:\UserData\Penepma12\Penfluor

Fanal.exe
C:\UserData\Penepma12\Fanal

Let me know if anyone has any questions.

[Probeman]

We've been modeling continuum intensities in Penepma for a number of pure elements and compounds.

Ever wonder what the spectrum looks like for a 1000K seconds long simulation looks like after 275 hours? 



Now that's one smooth continuum...