Development of a laboratory-based XRF facility for measuring elemental abundance ratios in planetary analogue powder samples

摘要

This paper describes the use of a swept-charge device (SCD) silicon X-ray detector in a laboratory based X-rayfluorescence (XRF) facility for calculating elemental abundance ratios from planetary analogue powder samples. Thefacility was developed to support the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) detector development and calibrationactivities prior to the flight of the instrument onboard the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chandrayaan-1mission to the Moon in 2008. The test facility has subsequently been used to carry out XRF analysis of homogenoussamples made from mixtures of MgO, Alsub2/subOsub3/sub and SiOsub2/sub powders, all of grain size &44 μm, across a range of mixture ratiosand at a high level of X-ray flux data in order to develop an algorithm which will allow the calculation of elementalabundance ratios. This paper also presents an analysis of XRF data collected from lunar regolith simulant JSC-1A and anEtna Basalt powder sample to enable calibration of various model parameters. The operation of the SCD, the XRF testfacility, the sample preparation methodology and the process of obtaining elemental abundance ratios from planetaryanalogue samples using the test facility are discussed in this paper.© (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.