Bruker Introduces Two New Analytical Accessories for Electron Microscopes

This new product introduction further expands the company’s portfolio of high-performance tools for materials characterisation in electron microscopes:

XSense™ is a novel parallel beam wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometer (WDS) for elemental analysis on scanning electron microscopes (SEM). Specifically designed for the lower energy range, the XSense spectrometer provides energy resolution down to 4 eV, enabling both excellent separation of closely spaced X-ray lines and highly sensitive trace element detection.

XSense™ is a new micro-spot X-ray source that enables photon-induced micro X‑ray fluorescence (micro-XRF) spectrometry on SEM systems, in conjunction with Bruker’s energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) detectors. In comparison with electron-excited X-ray spectrometry commonly used for elemental analysis on SEMs, micro-XRF spectrometry provides 20 to 50 times lower limits of detection, adding the capability of detecting and analysing trace amounts of higher-Z elements in the sample.

Both the XSense WDS analyzer and the XTrace micro X-ray source are operated via ESPRIT 2.0, Bruker’s new and unique 4-in-1 analytical software suite which seamlessly integrates EDS, WDS, EBSD and Micro-XRF under a single user interface. 

With the introduction of these new products Bruker is now the only vendor to offer five techniques, EDS, WDS, EBSD, Micro-XRF and Micro-CT, as high-performance add-on analysers for electron microscopes.