Three-dimensional Element-by-element Surface Topography Reconstruction of Compound Samples Using Multisegment Silicon Drift Detectors

Elemental surface topography information in microscopic material characterization contributes to a better understanding of surfaces, interfaces, substrates, and their applications. Here, a general approach based on microbeam proton-induced X-ray emission (micro-PIXE) to reconstruct the three-dimensional (3D) elemental surface topography using the annular multisegment silicon drift detector has been demonstrated. The proposed method includes four main steps: acquiring four two-dimensional elemental concentration maps using the multichannel spectrometer, reconstructing the local inclination angle from the atomic model of ion-matter interaction, calculating the two independent topography gradient components, and numerical surface topography integration. In this study, the general algorithm to obtain the gradient components has been successfully tested on a four-segment configuration to reconstruct the 3D surface topography of compound alloys with different microstructure scales. In synchrotron and accelerator facilities dealing with elemental X-ray mapping where the development of customized multisegment detectors is needed, the introduced method is applicable to elemental surface/interface roughness reconstruction in microscale for cultural heritage samples, fusion plasma-facing materials, and microelectronic devices.