Acquiring an AES Elastic Peak Alignment

To find out more about AES alignments, click here .

Remember: You need to acquire an AES elastic peak alignment when you use a new sample or move a previously-loaded sample.

To acquire an AES elastic peak alignment:

  1. Make sure that you can see the computer screen from where you are when you move the stage.

  2. Select the Technique command from the Acquisition menu to select AES, or click on the AES button in the main toolbar.

  3. Select the New Alignment command from the Acquisition menu, or click on the New Alignment button in the main toolbar.

  4. In the Alignment Settings dialog box, define the appropriate energy and acquisition time settings. Use the What’s This Help that is provided to define these settings. (Most analyzers have a 2kV elastic peak, so if it’s appropriate for your system, simply click on the 2KV button to use the default Lower Limit and Upper Limit energy settings for a 2kV beam voltage.)

  5. Click on the Acquire button in the Alignment Settings dialog box.

  6. If you are using a digital multiplier supply, skip to step 7, below. If you are using an analog multiplier supply (such as a model 20-075), do the following:
    While AugerScan runs the alignment routine, manually increase the voltage on the 20-075 multiplier supply until a reasonable amount of signal is obtained. Increase the voltage until you are getting a signal that is 80 to 90% of the limits for your V/F preamp.

Important: Do not exceed the limits shown below for your V/F preamplifier:

AugerScan00090000.gif 96 V/F: 100Kcps

AugerScan00090000.gif 96A or 96B V/F: 1Mcps

AugerScan00090000.gif Lock-in V/F: Baseline of 500Kcps. Do not exceed 1Mcps on the positive peak excursion, or less than 0 (zero) cps on the negative peak excursion.

  1. Adjust the position of your sample with respect to the analyzer until the displayed elastic peak is centered on the range, that is, is at the green vertical line.

The peak counts and energy position are displayed above the elastic peak. This helps you determine that a centered peak also has the most counts, which indicates that the sample is at the correct focal point.

  1. When your sample is aligned, select the Stop command from the Acquisition menu or click on the yellow Stop at End button on the Acquisition toolbar to stop acquiring the elastic peak alignment.

You can now acquire AES data.

AES Acqusition Procedures