And just to make it all more "symmetrical" we added an Imaging button to the "Basic EPMA" window:



Ready to update now.

Hello,

I am also teaching my class right now and this feature was received very, very well. So, thank you for implementing this and thanks to Julie for suggesting this!!

And I know I had my chance to say something and missed it but based on my own workflow, I would actually say that "Standard assignments" and "Analytical conditions" should be yellow too, "Adjust count times" should be the fifth instead of the third button of the first block and I would also add "Output Images" as an option at the end.

But otherwise, it is perfection 

The latest version of Probe for EPMA now has an improved Basic EPMA window as suggested by Anette von der Handt:

And I know I had my chance to say something and missed it but based on my own workflow, I would actually say that "Standard assignments" and "Analytical conditions" should be yellow too, "Adjust count times" should be the fifth instead of the third button of the first block and I would also add "Output Images" as an option at the end.

We can do that!   

Here's a start: let's purchase/synthesize/beg/borrow/steal some simple, synthetic materials that would be a suitable test of of our instruments' ability to make a k-ratio measurement.  Let's start simple, for example just one possibility off the top of my head, let's measure a pure synthetic Al2O3 single crystal, and a pure synthetic spinel (MgAl2O4) single crystal, both available in kilogram quantities and both beam stable.  Let's measure Al Ka in both materials (which is significantly absorbed by Mg in the spinel), and let's see if each of our spectrometers produce the same k-ratios. 

We can bring LiF and PET crystal into play by utilizing other elements, but consider this: for the purposes of a k-ratio comparison between spectrometers or between different instruments, it really doesn't matter what the exact compositions of our two materials are, so long as we are measuring the exact same two compositions. If the two materials are exactly the same compositionally, the k-ratios from all spectrometers, on all instruments (assuming a nominal 40 degrees takeoff), should be the same within precision (let's ignore the differences in effective electron landing energy from different carbon coating thickness, etc. for now, by utilizing significant overvoltages on our measurements!).

On the other hand, obviously, if we picked two materials for which we know exactly their compositions (via considerations of crystallinity, purity, homogeneity, thermodynamics or whatever), we would have a good first candidate for our k-ratio composition database.

This is just a first cut, but I suggest we start thinking about some high purity, beam stable, synthetic single crystal materials which are available already in kilogram quantities, from say laser optics crystal manufacturers for example (just their "cutoff" material as we obtained for our RbTiOPO4 material), and see which ones are good candidates for testing our k-ratio machines.

OK, it seems we have a lack of excitement for this project so I'm going to start locating some pure synthetic materials, Al2O3, MgO, MgAl2O4, etc. and start making up some mounts (with Julie Chouinard's help!).  They can all be carbon coated at the same time for reproducibility so that should not matter too much as long as our overvoltages are significant.

Question to the community: should we circulate a single mount, or should there be a number of replicate mounts that are circulated? 

Well, the thought of quantifying them did cross my mind since it would be so easy and you can clearly see concentration differences in the Ca, maybe in the P too. Even that travesty of counting statistics would still be more useful than a purely qualitative map!

Yes, exactly like the UMass monazite maps! I learned about this from Julien Allaz while we were trying to find monazites to date in deformed frictional melt veins from lower-crustal earthquakes. What I found here at UT was that folks were spending 8-12 hours collecting full thin section EDS maps, and then just overlaying the P, Zr, and Ti maps. The rest of the gigabytes of data seemed to be entirely beside the point to them, so I proposed this as a much more efficient method for locating their in-situ accessories minerals which could be differentiated with just five elements. Also, the FEI XL30 hosting the OI EDS system died and left them without much choice. So enthusiasm for these UMass-style rapid scans has been growing here too!

Also, you were 100% right about the logging - disabling that has resulted in maps almost as fast as they are supposed to be. Now if only I could double my speed yet again by using the JEOL bidirectional scanning in PI...

Edit: total run time as recorded in .prbimg files went from 3:25 hrs (11.7 ms/pixel) to 1:43 hrs (5.9 ms/pixel) for a map predicted to take 1:02 hrs (3.5 ms/pixel [but entered as 3]) in PI - difference in time on the 'fast' version from predicted because 'carriage returns' at max stage speed take up 41 minutes in a 1024 row map ~1 cm tall?