Probe Image + Thermo WDS+EDS mapping

[emma_fisi]

Hi Probe hive mind,

I have been trying to collect WDS maps and EDS maps using ProbeImage combined with our Thermo Noran system on a JEOL 8530F. While the system looks to be acquiring data, there is no content in the final maps. I've hunted around the Forum, and I can't find anything recent about this issue - just posts from over a year ago saying that it was not possible. Is it now possible? Am I just doing something wrong? I can get the Noran system to collect a signal from a single WDS spectrometer just fine, and we haven't had an issue doing single-point combined EDS and WDS analyses - it's only the maps collected in ProbeImage that have an issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers,
Emma

[John Donovan]

I have been trying to collect WDS maps and EDS maps using ProbeImage combined with our Thermo Noran system on a JEOL 8530F. While the system looks to be acquiring data, there is no content in the final maps. I've hunted around the Forum, and I can't find anything recent about this issue - just posts from over a year ago saying that it was not possible. Is it now possible? Am I just doing something wrong? I can get the Noran system to collect a signal from a single WDS spectrometer just fine, and we haven't had an issue doing single-point combined EDS and WDS analyses - it's only the maps collected in ProbeImage that have an issue.

Hi Emma,
That is correct.  The Thermo EDS system does not output any ROI pulses- which could be connected to your EDS mapping inputs and hence into PI (this is what JEOL does on JEOL instruments and what Bruker does on Cameca instruments). However, the problem with this method is that the resulting EDS ROI maps *cannot* be easily quantified (you'd have to acquire standards with the same ROI mapping conditions!).  So because Thermo doesn't have this ROI output capability at all, and because these maps are not easily quantified, I have opted to work with Thermo, Bruker and JEOL to produce an API utilizing a hardware synchronization between the WDS mapping and the EDS spectrum imaging capabilities of the various Thermo, Bruker and JEOL EDS systems.

A nice explanation of the various approaches to these issues is here:

http://probesoftware.com/smf/index.php?topic=400.msg3702#msg3702

At the moment I am waiting for each EDS vendor to finish their API/hardware connections so we can add these calls into Probe Image (and the EDS SI (spectrum imaging) get net intensity call into CalcImage) to produce fully quantitative WDS and EDS SI maps together in one pass.   That's the "holy grail".   

Here is where things stand now:

1. Thermo has implemented an API for this synchronized WDS-EDS SI mapping, and put together a small hardware box to convert the frame, line and pixel sync pulses from the Cameca mapping scan generator, but we need to finish testing this at John Fournelle's instrument in Wisconsin.  Thermo was making excellent progress on this, but they been a little side tracked the last 6 months due to the rollout of their new PathFinder EDS software.  Hopefully they will start working on this synchonized WDS-EDS project again soon.

2. I sent Bruker the proposed API over a year ago and they said this is totally doable, but in the meantime they have decided to work first with Cameca and implement this in PeakSight before they give the API to me.

3. JEOL has a beta API for this in development, but I have not yet received the final API nor any DLLs.   JEOL has said they could provide the mapping sync outputs for their 8200/8500 instruments for Thermo to interface with, but they have not yet provided the mapping sync pinouts to Thermo for the 8230/8530 instruments. So from your perspective that is the big holdup.

You might want to discuss this with some of your colleagues that have JEOL 8230/8530 instruments and Thermo EDS systems.  I know that Julien Allaz got JEOL to agree to this in principle, but so far they have not yet provided this information to Thermo so far as I know.  Did you specify that JEOL provide this sync pinout information to Thermo as part of your instrument purchase?  I think we discussed it at one point...

john

[emma_fisi]

Hi John,

Thanks for the reply and the update! A little part of me is glad it's not an "Emma Error" 

I was not privy to the initial JEOL/Thermo discussions when we bought our probe, but I'll go through the documentation I have and see if there is anything in writing. I imagine that we would have requested that JEOL provide Thermo with all the necessary information, since we want our probe to be as versatile as possible! We too seek the Holy Grail 

Cheers,
Em