XEDS detector has been upgraded.

2021/03/25

The SDD detector mounted on the Micro-Calorimeter FESEM (Zeiss Ultra 55) has been upgraded to an Oxford X-Max 150.
With the active area of 150 mm², our new detector is one of the largest XEDS detectors of Kyushu University’s shared use facilities. This will allow high sensitivity and extremely fast acquisition. Additionally, this system is now able to take XEDS mapping with drift correction and also real-time quantitative elemental mapping.
On your first use, request to receive an instruction of the operation from the staff when making a reservation.

Comparing the spectrum of the new X-Max150 and conventional (Vortex) detector. With the same live time acquisition of 60 seconds, X-Max150 collected 19 times of x-rays. This high efficiency will allow quick XEDS line analysis and also elemental mapping. The high background that was observed at low energy (< 300 eV) in our conventional detector is now gone, and will allow light element analysis and low-kV analysis.

XEDS elemental mapping of a 3D NAND Flash memory was acquired with the X-Max150. The gap between the circle shaped memory cells are 20 nm. The gaps are clearly resolved in the tungsten (W) map. The drift correction has compensated the sample drift, even in the long 30-minute acquisition and allowed us to get high spatial resolution elemental mapping.