High energy resolution PIXE spectroscopy at the J. Stefan Institute, Ljubljana

While traditional proton induced X-ray emission (PIXE) analytical technique is based on the energy dispersive solid state detectors used to collect the X-ray fluorescence from the sample, wavelength dispersive X-ray (WDX) spectrometers are applied in high energy resolution PIXE (HR-PIXE) analysis. The main drawback of the WDX spectroscopy is the relatively low efficiency making it less applicable for trace element PIXE analysis. However, the efficiency was enhanced significantly in modern spectrometers employing cylindrically or even spherically curved crystals combined with position sensitive X-ray detectors. The energy resolution of such a spectrometer may exceed the resolution of the energy dispersive detector by two orders of magnitude while keeping the efficiency at a high enough level to perform trace element analysis. In this paper, the recent history and the development of HR-PIXE spectroscopy at the J. Stefan Institute in Ljubljana is presented. Our current setup based on in-vacuum Johansson-type crystal spectrometer is presented in more details followed by some most recent applications.