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You will want to choose your bending factor (normally a small number 1-2) and a granularity normally ranging from 15 to 30.
You can change the Bending factor by moving the slider on the Determine Background window. This field adjusts the curvature of the background.
You can change the Granularity by moving the slider. This field changes the number of intervals used for background determination.
Click Accept to accept the background. The Determine Background window is closed and the accepted background is displayed as a green line on the Main Graphics window (Figure 4).
Once you determine the background, subtract the Background by clicking Subtract in the Determine Background window. Then click Replace. The diffractogram should be 'brought down' to base level.
Figure 4. Main Graphics window with the background displayed as the green line.
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Select Treatment > Search Peaks
The Search Peaks window opens with the Identify peak search parameter set.
Adjust the peak search parameters as necessary if needed (Figure 5). The default settings are a good starting point.
The significance is a calculation of the probability that a possible peak is not noise-induced. A large minimum significance above 2 or more is useful for noisy data.
Normally you should not have to adjust the other parameters, however if you have questions please ask the x-ray technician for assistancevalues.
Figure 5. Search Peaks Window
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In the Peak List window click on Peak List to show the numerical details of the peaks (Figure 7).
When you are happy with the results, click Accept button (Figure 5).
In the Peak List, you can right click on a row to Add Peak or Delete Peak or Remove Selected Peak Features from Scan. Deleting certain peaks will help the software to focus on specific peaks for mineral searching. This can be helpful if you have a multiphase (multi mineral bulk sample).
Figure 7. Peak List displaying the numerical details of the detected peaks from the Peak Search
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This step is OPTIONAL and not necessary for phase analysis or other analyses you can do in HighScore Plus.
Primarily you remove the K-alpha peaks from the diffraction pattern to clean up the data or make it easier to evaluate good and/or poor matches.
To remove the K-alpha2 signal form your data:
Select Treatment>Strip K-Alpha2.
Click the Strip K-alpha2 button.
Click the Replace button.
Click Close.
Peak Search and Match
Once you have applied the background and searched for peaks the next step is to match the peaks.
Select Analysis >Search & Match > Execute Search & Match
The Search & Match window appears with a default parameters set (Figure 8). For initial searching the default parameters are fine to start with. You can adjust the parameters as necessary.
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Figure 11. Move accepted peaks from the candidate window the accepted reference pattern.
The next step is If the minerals identified are not sufficient, you may need to repeat the search-match with new , different parametersparameters to narrow or widen the results. The correct phase may not appear because of the restrictions used in the initial search-match being too tight or too wide. If necessary, repeat the search and match process above. Many identification problems can be solved this way.
HighScore: Rietveld Analysis: Quantitative Phase Analysis (This section should be revised if/when quantitative analyses are completed onboard)
To complete a quantitative phase analysis you will use the Rietveld refinement in HighScore Plus.
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