Variations in atmospheric pressure as a source of errors in polychromatic X-ray experiments

The influence of the atmospheric pressure on the accuracy of energy diffractometry (ED), X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) using a semiconductor Si(Li) detector, polychromatic diffractometry without the energy dispersion (PDWED) using a coordinate detector has been considered. It is shown that in the interval of pressures 710–810 mm Hg, errors in the determination of interplanar spaces can reach 2% for PDWED, which is caused by the displacement of the maximum of spectral distribution due to changes in absorption by air gaps of the device, and by changes in the quantum efficiency of the coordinate detector. In the ED and XRF methods, changes in the spectrum lead to errors in the determination of relative intensities of diffraction and fluorescence peaks, respectively. The changes in integral intensity are about 1% and can be neglected in the majority of experiments. The curves of the displacement of the spectral distribution maximum and spectral changes were calculated as a function of the atmospheric pressure. The possibilities of reducing the effect are discussed.