Macroanalyzer system

Claim 1

A macroanalyzer comprising: an electron gun for emitting an electron beam; an electron lens positionsed for collimating the electron beam to a very small diameter which is small relative to the size of a target object to be analyzed and for scanning the collimated electron beam across a target object while maintaining the very small diameter of the beam; a flat diffraction crystal for diffracting secondary X-rays emitted from the target object as the electron beam is scanned thereacross; a first solar slit member positioned to collimate the secondary X-rays emitted from the target object before the secondary X-rays reach said diffraction crystal; a second solar slit member positioned to collimate X-rays diffracted from the diffraction crystal; the first and second solar slit members each comprising a plurality of stacked parallel plates with a slit formed between each two adjoining plates; an X-ray detector positioned to detect X-rays passed through said second solar slit member and to generate an output signal representative of the detected X-rays; and circuit means receptive of the X-ray detector output signal for discriminating between detected characteristic X-rays and a detected continuous X-ray spectrum and for dividing the respective discrimination X-ray values to eliminate X-ray intensity irregularities in the detected values of the characteristic X-rays caused by the X-rays passing through said solar slit members.