REPRODUCIBILITY ASPECTS OF RELATIVE SENSITIVITY FACTORS FOR MAJOR ANDIMPURITY ELEMENTS IN BRASS USING SECONDARY-ION MASS-SPECTROMETRY

A set of experiments has been performed in which SIMS relative sensiti vity factors (RSFs) of major and impurity elements in brass have been investigated. The attention has been focused upon the reproducibility of RSFs obtained by measuring M+ ions under oxygen bombardment and CsM + ions under cesium bombardment. Both the magnitude of the uncertainti es as well as the sources of their variation have been addressed. The data of the present study indicate that the reproducibility of relativ e sensitivity factors values for M+ and CsM+ ions in brass are statist ically of the same magnitude. The largest source of variation arises f rom the sample exchange. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.