May 2009 Archives

Confocal X-ray micro fluorescence is a method of 3D analysis, and uses the formation of confocal volume (probing microvolume) defined through the intersection of a focused excitation beam and the sensitive volume of a polycapillary lens placed in front of the detector. Because of increasing demands, the technique has been widely used at both synchrotron and laboratory sources. However, some essential problems in quantitative analysis have remained so far. Dr. A-G. Karydas (Institute of Nuclear Physics, N.C.S.R. "Demokritos", Greece) and his colleagues recently published a paper on the influence of the secondary fluorescence enhancement in this technique. For more information, see the paper, "Secondary Fluorescence Enhancement in Confocal X-ray Microscopy Analysis", D. Sokaras et al., Anal. Chem., Article ASAP, DOI: 10.1021/ac900688n

Demand for learning analytical techniques for surfaces and interfaces appears to be on the increase. At Tsukuba in Japan, the 3rd tutorial course on the analysis of thin films and multilayers by X-ray reflectivity was held on May 22. The first Japanese textbook that serves as an introduction to X-ray reflectivity was published in February, and the 7 authors gave lectures as part of the course. Further information is available at http://www.nims.go.jp/xray/ref/ (in Japanese only).