CONTINUOUS BACKGROUNDS IN PIXE

Continuous X rays produced by light-ion·atom collisions, which mainly form continuous backgrounds and determine the detection limit of PIXE, have been experimentally and theoretically studied, and it is shown that the experimental results over the wide range of projectile-ion energy from 0.5 MeV to 40 MeV can be well explained by three kinds of radiative process: atomic bremsstrahlung (AB), secondary-electron bremsstrahlung (SEB), and quasifree electron bremsstrahlung (QFEB). Results on the X-ray spectra, the projectile-energy dependence and the projectile-charge dependence, and on the angular distribution of these bremsstrahlungs will be summarized and the importance of AB in heavy-ion atom collision is presented. Discussions are also given on the other origins of continuous backgrounds such as the Compton scattering background, cosmic rays, the Rutherford scattering background, piling up of signals and response functions of detector, charge up effect of the target and natural backgrounds. On the basis of analyses of continuous backgrounds, the detection limit of PIXE is estimated.