This article will discuss the importance of Raimond Castaing's thesis on the genesis of a nondestructive and truly quantitative microanalytical method that assisted the scientific community in moving forward in the development of microanalytical instruments. I will also share with you my recollection of the decades of improvement in the electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA), that has allowed us t...

WAMPA (for Wide Area MicroProbe Analyser) represents a new scientific instrument concept for planetary exploration. WAMPA builds on recently published research such as sensor webs and distributed microsensors [1][2] but adds new sensor and localisation concepts. WAMPA is driven by the recurrent theme in spacecraft and sensor design to achieve smaller, lighter and lower cost systems. The essenti...

The electron microprobe provides a complete micrometer-scale quantitative chemical analysis of inorganic solids. The method is nondestructive and utilizes characteristic Xrays excited by an electron beam incident on a flat surface of the sample. This course provides an introduction to the theory of X-ray microanalysis through wavelength and energy dispersive spectrometry (WDS and EDS), ZAF matr...

Errors in quantitative electron microprobe analysis arise from many sources including those associated with sampling, specimen preparation, instrument operation, data collection, and analysis. The relative magnitudes of some of these factors are assessed for a sample of NiAl used to demonstrate important concerns in the analysis of even a relatively simple system measured under standard operati...

Focus and Aberrations of Nuclear Microprobe (FANM) is a new beam optics package to achieve fast accurate design nuclear microprobe. FANM achieves balance between speed focusing accuracy high order aberrations. A combined method proposed in conditions using matrix calculate aberration coefficients numerical ray tracing method. has two optional optimization algorithms (derivative-free particle sw...