Analysis of inhomogeneous and irregularly shaped samples by the use of XRF micro-beam correlation analysis

A quantitative method for micro-beam XRF was developed based on the analysis of correlation graphs between the intensities from different fluorescent lines. The method is capable of distinguishing chemical variations from those variations which are due to sample topology. The method was used to analyse irregularly shaped samples and accurate quantitative results were obtained even from very irregularly shaped millimetre-sized glass fragments. The method can also be used for studying chemically inhomogeneous samples. A simple mathematical model for fluorescent correlation is presented and a comparison is made with micro-beam XRF measurements of different types of glass samples and fragments. Application to fly-ash samples is demonstrated.