Principles and Development of Total Reflection X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis

The historical development of the basic physical concepts of total reflection, anomalous surface-reflection (ASR) and other grazing incidence phenomena are reviewed with respect to their impact on the development of TXRF as an analytical method in the introduction. The physical principles and technical arrangements for a broad field of actual applications are described. These major applications (total reflection sample support, total reflection cut-off filter, total reflection trace element and microanalysis, glancing incidence X-ray analysis (GIXA: surface and thin layer analysis), glancing incidence X-ray diffractometry) are described. The recent developments of research related to improving the detection limits of TXRF and trends to improve its scope and analytical power are described with respect to their potentials for further progress.