LAUSR

The headline performance advantage of SDD technology and a major reason for its rapid adoption for EDS analysis is its significantly improved count rate handling capability. With older Si(Li) detectors, count rates of few 10s of thousands of counts per second were practical. With SDD technology 100s of thousands of counts per second can be used, and with larger area SDD sensors such rates can be achieved at relatively low beam currents. These count rate improvements have made it possible to use X-ray maps for routine sample investigation and collect complete spectra at every pixel, where previously only spectra were acquired by the user selecting positions on an electron image.