Metal coatings with different compositions and thicknesses have attracted much commercial and scientific interest due to their role in the enhancement of chemical and mechanical properties of materials (e.g. hardness, friction, magnetic and corrosion). Elemental analysis and thickness measurement is critically important because the properties of these coatings are dependent on their composition and thickness. [1,2]<br/>The determination of elemental composition of materials using Energy Dispersive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) has been widely used because of its simplicity and low cost. Here, we demonstrated how we can simultaneously achieve both thickness and composition measurements of the coatings using an energy dispersive XRF spectroscopy method.<br/>Fundamental Parameter (FP) method was applied to measure the thickness of multilayer films and simultaneous quantitative film composition. The FP method uses theoretical intensity calculations to determine the composition from the measured intensity. It is specific to XRF spectroscopy and enables semi-quantitate analysis of an unknown sample while there are no standard samples available. It should be noted that the depth of fluorescent X-ray analysis for metals is limited to approximately 100 µm for metals. The thickness as well as composition was measured using a Shimadzu Scientific Instruments EDX-7000 bench-top XRF for the copper coated zinc samples. Obtained results demonstrated the accuracy of the analysis.<br/>

Simultaneous measurement of metal coatings thickness and composition using x-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy

2019 Fall National Meeting

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