Due to their high sensitivity and non-destructive nature, synchrotron radiation based X-ray fluorescence (XRF) micro- and nano-imaging methods play an increasingly important role in many scientific disciplines, including life, environmental as well as Earth and planetary science. This work illustrates the development and applications of these techniques towards a fully three-dimensional (3D) elemental/chemical imaging approach with a spatial resolution level in the 50 nm - 10 µm range. Next to an overview on scanning type of elemental/chemical imaging applications, a novel full-field X-ray fluorescence approach will be presented which makes use of a unique two-dimensional energy-dispersive CCD detector developed for non-destructive elemental microanalysis. The advantage of this ‘color X-ray camera’ (SLcam), produced by IFG (Berlin, Germany) and PNSensor (Munich, Germany), lies in its ability to record spatially and spectrally resolved images simultaneously by measuring the position of impact and energy of single photons in the energy range of 3-40 keV. The combination offers new opportunities in XRF microanalysis, especially with respect to 3D elemental imaging, by significantly enhancing the acquisition of 3D elemental data-sets. Applications of both scanning and full-field synchrotron XRF elemental imaging will be illustrated for the non-destructive analysis of a) microscopic inclusions in natural diamonds1 b) unique cometary and interstellar matter brought to Earth in the framework of NASA’s Stardust mission2 and c) biological model organisms3. The presented X-ray fluorescence micro/nanoimaging experiments were performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) ID13, ID16B, DUBBLE and PETRA III P06 beam lines. References [1] Pearson et al., “A hydrous mantle transition zone indicated by ringwoodite included within diamond”, Nature, 507, 221–224 (2014). [2] Westphal et al., “Evidence for interstellar origin of seven dust particles collected by the Stardust spacecraft”, Science, 345 (6198) 786-791 (2014). [3] Vergucht et al., “In vivo X-ray elemental imaging of single cell model organisms manipulated by laser-based optical tweezers”, Scientific Reports 5, NPG, Article number: 9049 (2015).

High resolution elemental imaging using advanced x-ray sources in environmental, earth and planetary science

251st National Meeting (2016)

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