EPMA Measurements of Diffusion Profiles at the Submicrometre Scale

Olivier Arnould (1) , François Hild (1)

1 LMT - Laboratoire de Mécanique et Technologie

Concentration profiles due to (inter)diffusion in materials may require high spatial resolution. These profiles may be measured by electron probe microanalysis, which allows one to determine the elemental composition with a good accuracy provided measurement ‘artefacts' can be accounted for. Standard phenomena are usually corrected by commercial softwares that assume a homogeneous elemental composition in the analysed area. However, in the case of a diffusion process on a small scale, the composition is no longer homogeneous and the effect of the hemispherical volume of the Xray emission on the spatial resolution of the concentration profiles, and consequently on the diffusion coefficients, has to be considered. Moreover, (secondary) fluorescence across interfaces or interphases has to be evaluated. A radial X-ray distribution associated with the characteristic depth distribution allows for the definition of a 2D X-ray emission function that enables the computation of the entire process for a given concentration profile.

Mots clés: EPMA; concentration profiles; average effect; (secondary) fluorescence; interface

Domaines: Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]

Olivier Arnould, François Hild. EPMA Measurements of Diffusion Profiles at the Submicrometre Scale. Mikrochimica Acta, 2002, 139, pp.3-10. ⟨10.1007/s006040200032⟩. ⟨hal-00002919⟩