Mg2Si-BASED MULTILAYER XRF ANALYZERS WITH TWO- AND THREE-LAYER STRUCTURE DESIGN

New Mg2Si-based multilayer structures were proposed for XRF analysis of the light elements from magnesium to nitrogen. These structures contain two, three or more different layer materials in a single period. The additional third, fourth, etc, layer was introduced for improving performance as well as for application dependent performance flexibility. Three-layer W/SiC/Mg2Si and two layer Co/Mg2Si structures with 2d values of 5.5nm and 8nm were deposited by magnetron sputtering. Analytical performance of the new structures was measured by WDXRF spectrometers at Mg-Kα1,2, Na-Kα1, F-Kα1, O-Kα1, and N-Kα1 and was compared with traditional W/Si structures. W/SiC/Mg2Si analyzers showed around 10% and 10%-40% improvement in L.L.D. and sensitivity, respectively. Co/Mg2Si structures demonstrated 37%57% flux increase at N-Kα1 and O-Kα1 but provided unexpectedly low performance at F-Kα1.