Figure 1 Principle
of the confocal XRF test bed used in this study. Results and discussion In the first series of experiments, the primary spot was characterized. For that purpose, the detector is positioned in direct view of the primary beam. The detector entry is shrunk using a 5-μm diameter lead pinhole placed on the X, Y, Cytoskeletal Signaling inhibitor Z piezo stages. The pinhole is positioned in the polycapillary lens focal plane and is displaced along the beam spot diameter in the same plane. For each pinhole position, a primary beam spectrum is acquired. Figure 2 shows the X-ray photon flux variations with the pinhole centre position within different incident energy ranges. The incident spot profile has a Gaussian shape, and the NU7441 ic50 radius as well as the maximum flux find more depends on the photon energy. The lens providing the spot consists in a monolithic system made of a great number of monocapillary micrometric glass tubes bent together [10]. Because
the Rh low power source is not monochromatized, the total external reflection critical angle of glass θ c should vary with source energy E in agreement with the following equation: (1)where ρ is the glass capillary density. This is the reason why the incident spot radius provided by the polycapillary lens depends on the photon energy range, as can be seen in Figure 2. The average spot radius measured at 1/e is 22 μm, and the total photon flux within this SB-3CT spot area is about 1.7 × 109
photons/s. Figure 2 Lateral photon flux profile for different X-ray energy ranges. Then, the geometry of the fluorescence emitting volume in the cobalt sample was defined using the confocal XRF configuration shown in Figure 1 by scanning the cylindrical capillary used for detection along the X-ray fluorescence emitting zone. At each cylindrical capillary position, an X-ray spectrum is acquired that exhibits the two characteristic Co-Kα and Co-Kβ lines at 6.9 and 7.6 keV, respectively. We then reported in Figure 3 the Kα peak area measured for each capillary position using various capillary radii from 5 to 50 μm. All the curves exhibit identical shape which are not expected to be Gaussian. The primary beam is not perpendicular to the surface so that it penetrates inside the sample with an attenuation length xRh-Kα/Co = 43 μm [19] inducing X-ray fluorescence, itself reabsorbed and leading to secondary emission. This means that the collected fluorescence comes from a deep excited volume schematically shown in Figure 4. However, the fluorescence emitted within this deep volume cannot be entirely detected since the attenuation length of Co-Kα rays in Co (xCo-Kα/Co = 18 μm [19]) is shorter than the penetration depth of Rh-Kα rays in Co.