THE EFFECT OF THE SIGNAL PROCESSOR ON THE LINE SHAPE

Various portions of an EDX spectral line were found to be dependent on the processor used to convert an amplified signal from an energy dispersive detector to a useable spectrum; i.e. low energy tailing, both intrinsic and noise generated, events on the shoulders of peaks, residual pileup and sum peak shapes as well as se features were shown to be noise dependent and thus time variant, as well as rate dependent and processor dependent. Minimizing and accounting for these effects are important in reducing the errors in the deconvolution of spectra into component element contributions. This along with the associated rejected event spectrum provides the basis for a more accurate quantitative analysis. The rejected spectrum is necessary to determine the true input rate.