New in 2019 – The EXP-2 Complete XRF Experimenter’s Kit. Including new 10 W X-ray tube option, increased radiation safety features, and updated XRF-FP software.

Amptek’s Experimenter’s XRF Kit is a package designed to help a user quickly begin doing elemental analysis via Xray fluorescence (XRF). It includes hardware and software supplied by Amptek. Once this kit is assembled and the software configured and calibrated, one can begin doing simple analyses. This kit is general purpose and not tailored to a specific application but can be the starting point for a customized system.

The XRF Kit is available with your choice of Amptek Fast SDD™ or Si-PIN detector. The user must supply a Windows 7 or later PC with three (3) available USB ports.

EXP-2 Complete XRF Experimenter's Kit

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the XRF Experimenter's Kit

• Is this XRF Experimenter’s Kit comparable to a turnkey XRF system?

This kit contains all hardware and software required to perform energy dispersive XRF (EDXRF) measurements, but it is not a turnkey system. It requires assembly, configuration of hardware and software, and calibration.

A turnkey system is generally designed to handle a wide range of measurement applications. If a user has a specific application, particularly one that is challenging for turnkey systems, the Amptek Experiment’s XRF Kit lets the user optimize the entire system for that one application. It is a very powerful tool for specific and challenging measurement applications. But to obtain its advantages, the user must invest the time to fully optimize the hardware, the software, the calibration procedures, and so on.

A turnkey system is designed for an operator with minimal training. The operator turns on the system, takes a measurement, and the system gives the answer. The designers of the turnkey system have already optimized the configuration, calibrated the system, and evaluated its measurement uncertainty. The Experiment’s XRF Kit requires a user to carry out these steps and to have the knowledge to carry them out. It is possible to use the Experiment’s XRF Kit to fabricate a prototype of an OEM system, which is simple to use, but this requires development effort

• To do XRF, do I need to buy or build anything other than Amptek’s Experimenter’s XRF Kit?

No, the Experiment’s XRF Kit provides everything including radiation shielding. User’s must be trained in radiation safety and fully understand the radiation precautions and instructions provided.

• What must I do to start using the Experimenter’s XRF Kit as a laboratory prototype?

The kit comes with instructions to guide you through (a) assembling the hardware, (b) installing the software, (c) selecting a “basic” configuration which permits you to acquire a spectrum, and (d) calibrating the energy scale.
The kit comes with a single sample material, a piece of stainless steel 316, to use in initial setup and calibration. You must obtain any other samples necessary.
You need to optimize the configuration of the system for your measurement application. There are many parameters to consider: the energy and filtering of the excitation source, geometry of the detector, tube and sample, the parameters of the signal processor (there are a many parameters, though usually only a few are key), and the parameters of the spectrum processing and analysis software.
You need to calibrate the energy scale. For accurate results, you also need to calibrate the analysis software using samples of known composition.