New Features In Probe for EPMA

[John Donovan]

One can now output mineral end member calculations from the User Specified Output menu (thanks to Paul Carpenter!)

[John Donovan]

Did you know that one can now specify which samples (std, unk or wavescans) the beam deflection acquisition applies to in the Automate! window?



Thanks to Philipp Poeml for the idea!
john

[John Donovan]

This new feature in Probe for EPMA allows the user to see the cursor spectrometer position in relative or absolute spectrometer units.  Might be handy when lots of different background positions are being utilized in different sample setups:



A previous feature requested by Paul Carpenter is the checkbox here to *not* re-scale the KLM markers so that the marker tops and labels do not go off-scale. Useful so one can see the relative KLM marker heights even when zoomed in on the background:



A related feature is this checkbox which allows the user to "suppress" the display of KLM markers for the element currently being plotted. This option can help make the display more readable since we do not normally care too much about secondary lines of the current element since the secondary lines will scale in intensity with the main peak:

[John Donovan]

Did you know that you can perform kmeans (Hardigan-Wong) modified clustering methods to quantitative analysis data from Probe for EPMA using CalcImage to extract phase information?

See this thread:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=41.msg254#msg254

[John Donovan]

Anette von der Handt posted this idea to our "wishlist" last Tuesday and I agree, it's a good idea!  So it's ready to download. 



That's it, you just right click the graph where you want the new on-peak to be. Remember to have a current sample with no data, but the program will remind you if you forget. 
john

[Probeman]

This is a handy feature where one can select only the first or second, etc elements for each spectrometer in a run:



It is especially useful when setting up Probe Image to acquire multiple x-ray maps sets for more elements than one has spectrometers!

[John Donovan]

This is a nice new feature...

Starting with version 10.2.4, Probe for EPMA will automatically read and save your instrument configuration files to the current probe database.

These config files aren't that large anyway, but have lots of useful information, so now one will be able to carry the complete instrument configuration files with your own data files, and these config "snapshots" can be added any time later from this menu if the config files are modified subsequently:



The other aspect is that one can browse these different configuration files and if needed, also export these important config files, as seen here:



for example on an off-line data processing computer perhaps for teaching purposes... the app will automatically change the instrument InterfaceType to "demonstration" for you. 

[Probeman]

The config export dialog has been tweaked a little, so now one can view all the stored configuration files.

[John Donovan]

Along with the internally stored config files, PFE now automatically stores the standard compositions from the Standard.mdb composition database.

So if you happen to move your data file to another computer, the software will prompt you automatically and warn if any standards are missing and export the compositions if necessary.

[John Donovan]

It's official!  We are "OK" with uncle Bill...
john

[John Donovan]

Probe for EPMA has always had the best spectral interference correction for decades, but now it's even better. Thanks to suggestions from Karen Wright and Philipp Poeml, one can now apply spectral interference corrections to elements that utilize "virtual" standards.  What is a "virtual" standard?  Well it's a standard for an element that one doesn't physically have, e.g., a solid Xe standard...

For this procedure we utilize two other standards whose emission lines of the *same* family (KLM) "bracket" the emission line of interest, for example we might use Mg ka and Si ka on Mg and Si standards, to interpolate the intensity of an Al standard if we didn't have an Al standard (yes, all intensities are matrix corrected for best accuracy for the interpolation). Here is an example of this "test" of the virtual standard dialog from the Analytical menu in PFE:



In tests that I have performed on known materials, the accuracy varies with the emission line, but is around 5% accuracy, so much better than nothing! And once this virtual standard is specified properly, we obtain the following output for the Xe La measuring a LaPO4 standard where it is interfered by the La Ll line (*without* the spectral interference correction first):

St  823 Set   1 Lanthanum phosphate-2AA
TakeOff = 40.0  KiloVolt = 20.0  Beam Current = 20.0  Beam Size =   20
(Magnification (analytical) =  20000),        Beam Mode = Analog  Spot
(Magnification (default) =      100, Magnification (imaging) =    200)
Image Shift (X,Y):                                          .00,   .00

Standard Description
Number of Data Lines:   1             Number of 'Good' Data Lines:   1
First/Last Date-Time: 02/13/2014 12:52:15 PM to 02/13/2014 12:52:15 PM
WARNING- Using Virtual Standard Intensity For Xe la

Average Total Oxygen:         .000     Average Total Weight%:  100.377
Average Calculated Oxygen:    .000     Average Atomic Number:   23.355
Average Excess Oxygen:        .000     Average Atomic Weight:   25.968
Average ZAF Iteration:        3.00     Average Quant Iterate:     2.00

St  823 Set   1 Lanthanum phosphate-2AA, Results in Elemental Weight Percents
 
ELEM:       Xe      La       P       O
TYPE:     ANAL    ANAL    SPEC    SPEC
BGDS:      LIN     LIN
TIME:    30.00   30.00
BEAM:    20.00   20.00

ELEM:       Xe      La       P       O   SUM 
     1    .395  26.812  29.910  43.260 100.377

AVER:     .395  26.812  29.910  43.260 100.377
SDEV:     .000    .000    .000    .000    .000
SERR:     .000    .000    .000    .000
%RSD:      .00     .00     .00     .00

PUBL:     n.a.  26.830  29.910  43.260 100.000
%VAR:      ---  (-.07)     .00     .00
DIFF:      ---  (-.02)    .000    .000
STDS:     1000     823       0       0

STKF:   1.0000   .2287   .0000   .0000
STCT:   363.12   16.84     .00     .00

UNKF:    .0033   .2287   .0000   .0000
UNCT:     1.22   16.84     .00     .00
UNBG:     1.13     .21     .00     .00

ZCOR:   1.1793  1.1725   .0000   .0000
KRAW:    .0033  1.0000   .0000   .0000
PKBG:     2.08   81.44     .00     .00


After applying spectral interference correction for La Ll on Xe La, we obtain this output with the interference on Xe properly corrected for:

St  823 Set   1 Lanthanum phosphate-2AA
TakeOff = 40.0  KiloVolt = 20.0  Beam Current = 20.0  Beam Size =   20
(Magnification (analytical) =  20000),        Beam Mode = Analog  Spot
(Magnification (default) =      100, Magnification (imaging) =    200)
Image Shift (X,Y):                                          .00,   .00

Standard Description
Number of Data Lines:   1             Number of 'Good' Data Lines:   1
First/Last Date-Time: 02/13/2014 12:52:15 PM to 02/13/2014 12:52:15 PM
WARNING- Using Virtual Standard Intensity For Xe la

Average Total Oxygen:         .000     Average Total Weight%:  100.000
Average Calculated Oxygen:    .000     Average Atomic Number:   23.241
Average Excess Oxygen:        .000     Average Atomic Weight:   25.890
Average ZAF Iteration:        3.00     Average Quant Iterate:     3.00

St  823 Set   1 Lanthanum phosphate-2AA, Results in Elemental Weight Percents
 
ELEM:       Xe      La       P       O
TYPE:     ANAL    ANAL    SPEC    SPEC
BGDS:      LIN     LIN
TIME:    30.00   30.00
BEAM:    20.00   20.00

ELEM:       Xe      La       P       O   SUM 
     1    .000  26.830  29.910  43.260 100.000

AVER:     .000  26.830  29.910  43.260 100.000
SDEV:     .000    .000    .000    .000    .000
SERR:     .000    .000    .000    .000
%RSD:      .00     .00     .00     .00

PUBL:     n.a.  26.830  29.910  43.260 100.000
%VAR:      ---   (.00)     .00     .00
DIFF:      ---   (.00)    .000    .000
STDS:     1000     823       0       0

STKF:   1.0000   .2287   .0000   .0000
STCT:   363.12   16.84     .00     .00

UNKF:    .0000   .2287   .0000   .0000
UNCT:      .00   16.84     .00     .00
UNBG:     1.13     .21     .00     .00

ZCOR:   1.1801  1.1734   .0000   .0000
KRAW:    .0000  1.0000   .0000   .0000
PKBG:     1.00   81.44     .00     .00
INT%:  -100.00    ----    ----    ----


See this thread for more discussion on the virtual standard feature in Probe for EPMA:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=179.0

[Probeman]

A new feature PHA acquisition feature is now available for Cameca (SX100 and SXFive) instruments. But first a minor "mea culpa"...

Last year I installed the new Thermo WDS mapping option for my NSS EDS system. Works very well, see here:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=77.msg284#msg284

This is because the Sx100 has TTL outputs available to connect to the Thermo WDS input BNC cables.  Subsequently I learned that the Cameca SXFive is different from the Sx100 is this respect and no longer provides TTL pulse outputs for WDS mapping by 3rd party applications. For some reason I mistakenly associated this change in the SXFive TTL output with the implementation of the Cameca PHA multi channel analyzer (MCA) acquisition hardware, but of course the Sx100 has always had this PHA MCA capability so I don't know where I got that idea...

Subsequently when I learned that JEOL, had also dropped their WDS TTL output capability in their new 8230/8530 instruments I wrongly assumed that they had also implemented this new PHA MCA hardware for PHA scanning acquisition.  But that was not the case... so although I've coded this new PHA MCA acquisition capability for both Cameca and JEOL instruments, it only works for JEOL in demo mode!

So what is PHA MCA?  Well the final result is no different than with the traditional baseline/window scan method, but it is *much* faster. Right now the SX100 function does not return the integration times so only raw counts are displayed, but we will soon implement a method that can return the elapsed time also, so we can display cps for the PHA scans as we currently do.

So like an EDS spectrum acquisition, one sees the same type of acquisition for the PHA scan, in that it improves the full spectrum precision over time (at least the way Probe Software has implemented the PHA MCA call).

Note that PFE will also perform this PHA MCA acquisition now in demo mode so even JEOL users can see for yourself.  What is nice about the demo mode is that it checks the emission line energy and if it is high enough to ionize Ar, it also shows the Ar escape peak correctly in the PHA MCa scan (no not for Xe yet, remember this is just demo mode!). Nice for teaching in off-line demo mode though.

Anyway, JEOL does not currently offer this very nice capability but for SX100/SXFive users, simply update to the latest PFE (10.2.9) and obtain the latest Cameca driver from Probe Software (v. 1.9.0).

Then simply edit the Probewin.ini file for the PHAHardwareType as shown here:

[pha]
PHAHardwareType=1        ; 0 = trad. PHA, 1 = MCA PHA acquisition

Here's what is looks like during acquisition:



Yeah, no visual difference once it's acquired as seen here, though a note is made of the PHA acquisition type:



Note that although the default PHA acquisition mode can be specified in the Probewin.ini file as shown above, one can also change it for the current probe run, by simply checking this box here:

[Probeman]

After some very limited testing I think 0.1 sec and 40 points seems to provide a nice fast PHA scan acquisition when using the new MCA PHA feature on Cameca instruments as seen here:



To change your defaults to this in the Probewin.ini, these should be the settings:

[pha]
PHAHardwarePresent=1         ; non-zero = PHA baseline/window interface present
PHAHardwareType=1         ; 0 = traditional PHA acquisition, 1 = MCA PHA acquisition (Cameca only)

PHACountTime=0.1         ; default integration time for PHA acquisitions
PHAIntervals=40            ; default PHA intervals

Your MCA PHA acquisitions will then look like this:



More details on testing of this new PHA acquisition feature here:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=217.0

[Probeman]

The last few version numbers of Probe for EPMA have a new feature that automatically saves the standard compositions to your probe database, so even if you forget to take a current copy of your standard.mdb file, you can still work the the data you acquired.

However, here is where "it gets a little sticky": when the program finds that there is a disagreement between the standard composition stored in the probe database and the standard composition stored in the probe database (because maybe the lab manager updated the standard database with a more accurate chemical characterization), it has to ask: which is the correct composition?

So please be prepared if you get this message:



to answer Yes to update the internally stored composition with the externally stored Standard.mdb composition, No to export the internally stored composition, or Cancel to just close the MDB file.

[John Donovan]

The Peak/Scan Options dialog now includes a button to force the wavescan ranges to include the Multi-Point Background positions as seen here: