3. Instrumentation for x-ray emission spectroscopy

X-ray emission techniques are based in the production of characteristic radiation in the analysed sample. The ionization of the atoms can be performed using different types of excitation sources, and the measurement of the x-rays emitted by the sample and its further processing and interpretation are performed in different ways.

Any x-ray emission spectrometer includes the main components included in the figure below:

The main hardware components used in most of the X-ray spectrometers are described in the following sections.