Bruker AXS Microanalysis has chosen the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2008 annual meeting to unveil several products and options for scanning electron microscope (SEM) based materials analysis.
The Quantax Crystalign system for SEM-based crystallographic analysis through electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) consists of an EBSD detector and software that is integrated with Bruker's EDS software, Espirit.
The combination of EBSD with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) offers materials characterisation capabilities in SEM for a range of applications on metals, ceramics and geological samples.
Dr Gert Nolze, EBSD product manager at Bruker AXS Microanalysis, said: 'The Crystalign system provides several capabilities, including ultra-fast acquisition rates of up to 750 patterns per second and the ability to scan the sample at a constant frame rate and store the patterns as a string of images for subsequent indexing and evaluation.
'This EBSD collection strategy allows investigation of individual patterns and re-analysis of the crystal orientation maps without repeated data acquisition.' Thomas Schuelein, executive vice-president at Bruker AXS, added: 'Crystalign supplements the capabilities of our Quantax EDS system by providing powerful tools for EBSD data acquisition, interpretation and display of results, while making the EBSD technique more accessible to the general microanalysis and SEM user.' Bruker also presented the XFlash 5000 series of liquid nitrogen-free XFlash silicon drift detectors for use with the company's Quantax microanalysis systems.
The detectors feature improved energy resolutions down to 123eV at Mn-Ka and 100,000 cps input count rate.
All detectors are equipped with an optimised electron trap, which supports interference-free X-ray detection, even at very low excitation energies.
In addition, Bruker's Espirit Feature software package extends the capabilities of the Quantax EDS analysis systems for advanced particle analysis applications.
The package utilises the speed of the Quantax image digitiser and the XFlash EDS detector for fast particle identification and chemical classification.
Functions include configurable feature detection, and a review function, as well as chart and report generation.
Espirit Feature allows automatic unattended analysis of large samples or areas by preset methods for detection, classification and result handling.