PIGE analysis and profiling of aluminium

In this work we present an alternative method for PIGE analysis of aluminium in thick samples. This method is based on the ERYA-emitted radiation yield analysis - code, which integrates the nuclear reaction excitation function along the depth of the sample. For this purpose, the excitations functions of the (27) Al(p,p'gamma(1,2))Al-27 reaction (with gamma-ray energies of 844 and 1014 keV) were employed. Calculated gamma-ray yields were compared, at several proton energy values, with experimental yields for thick samples made of inorganic compounds containing aluminium. The agreement is better than 5%. The 1684 keV resonance of the same reaction, with a natural width of 100 eV, was used to profile samples of Ti implanted with several doses of Al. We show that this resonance, stronger than the 992 keV resonance of the Al-27(p,gamma)Si-28 usually employed for aluminium profiling, leads to similar depth resolution in shorter collection time. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.