PIXE in 1980: Summary of the Second International Conference on Particle Induced X-Ray Emission and Its Analytical Applications

The Second International Conference on Particle Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) and its analytical applications was held in Lund, Sweden, June 9-12, 1980. About a hundred papers were presented, including seven invited talks (PIXE and particle scattering, microbeam analysis (2), applications to aerosols (2) and biological samples (2)). The main impression left by the conference was that both the PIXE method and its applications are in a phase of fast development. Considerable effort has successfully been devoted to optimizing the basic PIXE technique. Also the great advantage of simultaneously getting information about lighter elements and sample mass was reported to have been successfully employed in routine analyses. PIXE, which was initially considered to be a method mainly for thin samples, has also been shown to be competitive for a variety of thick samples. Consequently there were several papers dealing with problems characteristic of thick sample analysis. In this context, external beam analysis was also thoroughly discussed. Charged particle microprobes seem to be very attractive and several investigators reported progress on microprobe development and very interesting results of applied work. It is gratifying to note the increasing interest shown by non-physisists in using PIXE. These activities have greatly contributed to the fact that PIXE has now in a few areas left the phase of feasibility tests. E.g. an imposing amount of data from aerosol studies was presented.