Heterogeneity Assessment in Individual CaCO3−CaSO4 Particles Using Ultrathin Window Electron Probe X-ray Microanalysis

In our previous studies, it has been demonstrated that both the excitation interactions between electrons and the atoms of the matrix and the matrix and geometric effects of electron-induced X-ray signals can be described by Monte Carlo simulation for low-Z elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, in individual atmospheric microparticles. In addition, by the application of a quantification method, which employs Monte Carlo simulation combined with successive approximations, at least semiquantitative specification of the chemical compositions could be done. This has enlarged the scope of electron probe X-ray microanalysis (EPMA) for the single particle analysis of atmospheric environmental aerosol particles. In this work, we demonstrate that the heterogeneity of individual particles, even of micrometer size, can be characterized by the application of EPMA. X-ray photons obtained with different primary electron beam energies carry information on the chemical compositions for different regions in the particles. Artificially generated heterogeneous CaCO3−CaSO4 individual particles were measured at different accelerating voltages, and it was found that the Monte Carlo calculation is a powerful technique to extract the information on the heterogeneity of the particles that is contained in the measured X-ray data. Our approach can even estimate the thickness of the surface CaSO4 species by the application of the Monte Carlo calculation. A preliminary result for carbon-coated glass particles is also presented. The complexity involved in the analysis of real world particles is briefly mentioned with a result for heterogeneous SiO2 particle.