AZtecLive - In Depth

Tru-Q is a unique combination of new and existing technologies that make the promise of automatic, real-time element identification and composition determination a reality. These technologies include:

FLS – Robust algorithm for removing the X-ray background from the spectrum and fitting peak profiles of the identified elements to calculate peak areas that does not require any user set up.

QCAL – New and unique approach to determining the precise position, resolution and shape of all element peak profiles to bring a new level of accuracy to both the calculation of peak area and the intensity relative to that of a pure element (“k-ratio”).

XPP – The Matrix correction algorithm to convert k-ratios to element concentrations that has been proven to give more accurate results on all types of samples

PPC – Improved version of our special algorithm for predicting pile-up X-rays present at very high count rates and putting them back in their correct place in the spectrum

AutoID – Improved algorithm to analyse peak content of a spectrum and deduce the elements responsible, even when there are severe peak overlaps

By combining these technologies AZtec^® offers an unrivalled quality of results including automatic peak identification and automatic standardless analysis with no user intervention, even when data are collected at high count rates and short acquisition times. This note covers the main technology details and shows that with Tru-Q you can obtain quantitative results with an accuracy only previously achieved using well characterised and closely matched standard materials. Tru-Q is an important component in the hardware and software provided by Oxford Instruments that delivers reliable results in seconds using the speed of Ultim^® Max and X-Max^® silicon drift detectors (SDD).

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