February 23, 2025

Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart,
be acceptable in your sight, O Lord

Other ideas Ingo is interested in

Oxford Inca Wave
Oxford WDS
Microspec WDX 2A
Microspec PC
WDS is "Wavelength Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry. The idea is that you aim a beam of electrons (in a vacuum) at a sample and work up a spectrum from the signal emitted.

EDS is "Energy Dispersive S-ray Spectrometry".

You need to have an electron microscope to get started with either of these, along with the equipment to pull a vacuum on the sample chamber. All of this involves having a non-trivial laboratory set up.

What you are doing is building an electron microprobe. I remember one in the basement of the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona. It was tempermental and had a full time person whose entire responsibility (as a full time employee) seemed to be to keep the thing working and to know all about it. I have no idea what make and model this was or if it was a research prototype.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Electronics pages / tom@mmto.org