Electron Microbeam Analysis

This supplement of Mikrochimica Acta contains selected papers from the Second Workshop of the European Microbeam Analysis Society (EMAS) "Modern Developments and Applications in Microbeam Analysis", on which took place in May 1991 in Dubrovnik (Yugoslavia). EMAS was founded in 1987 by members from almost all European countries, in order to stimulate research, applications and development of all forms of microbeam methods. One of the most important activities EMAS is the organisation of biannual workshops for demonstrating the current status and developing trends of microbeam methods. For this meeting, EMAS chose to highlight the following topics: electron-beam microanalysis (EPMA) of thin films and quantitative analysis of ultra-light elements, Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), electron energy loss spec­ trometry (EELS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), quantitative analysis of biological samples and standard-less electron-beam microanalysis. Seven introductory lectures and almost seventy poster presentations were given by speakers from twelve European and two non-European (U.S.A. and Argentina) countries were made. One cannot assume that all fields of research in Europe were duly represented, but a definite trend is discernible. EPMA with wavelength-dispersive spectrometry (WDS) or energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS) is the method with by far the widest range of applications, followed by TEM with EELS and then AES. There are also interesting suggestions for the further development of new appa­ ratus with new fields of application. Applications are heavily biased towards materials science (thin films in microelectronics and semicon­ ductors), ceramics and metallurgy, followed by analysis of biological and mineral samples.