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There be gold in them there ore!

A project log for Hitachi S-450 Scanning Electron Microscope

Getting an old (1980s) SEM running and adding digital capture

jerry-biehlerJerry Biehler 12/28/2014 at 09:030 Comments

I threw a piece if U Ore that I bought a couple years ago in the scope to see what it would show, here it is, no pic of the sample, it was pretty boring looking:

[A N A L Y S I S R E P O R T]

GENERAL CONDITIONS

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Result File : UORE

File Version : 1

Background Method : Foil

Decon Method : Gaussian

Decon ChiSquared : 6.13

Analysis Date : 28-DEC-2014

Microscope : SEM

Comments :

ANALYSIS CONDITIONS

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Quant. Method : XPP/ASAP

Acquire Time : 400 secs

Normalization Factor: 100.00

SAMPLE CONDITIONS

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kV : 30.0

Beam Current : 100.0 picoAmps

Working Distance : 25.0 mm

Tilt Angle : 30.0 Degrees

TakeOff Angle : 35.0 Degrees

Solid Angle*BeamCurrent: 0.9

Element Line Weight% K-Ratio Cnts/s Atomic%

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Mg Ka 3.16 0.0117 9.87 5.37

Al Ka 8.21 0.0365 33.43 12.59

Si Ka 40.97 0.2064 194.23 60.36

Ca Ka 7.39 0.0471 33.73 7.63

Ti Ka 0.00 0.0000 0.00 0.00

Fe Ka 8.69 0.0743 32.49 6.44

Cu Ka 3.47 0.0309 9.58 2.26

Pd La 0.00 0.0000 0.00 0.00

Au La 12.69 0.1014 8.26 2.67

U La 15.42 0.1138 2.89 2.68

Total100.00

I was surprised by the gold. I guess I should have not been, U was first found in Gold mines so says the internets. But I am scanning a very tiny piece of the ore so who knows if it is homogenous throughout the sample.

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