Pile-Up Correction for Improved Accuracy and Speed of X-Ray Analysis

Despite advances in electronic design, pile-up artefacts are still common in EDX spectra and can lead to false element identifications, inaccurate correction for peak overlap and losses of counts that give poor quantitative results. With the capability to do spectrum imaging there is increasing temptation to work at count rates far beyond the correction capability of pile-up inspection electronics. Fundamental limitations due to noise are explained and a new correction procedure is described that implements a comprehensive channel-by-channel correction for pile-up. Practical examples are given that demonstrate the range of application of the new algorithm and show that, with correction, count rates at least 4 times higher can be used with no sacrifice in performance.