Trying to combine selected samples

[irisbuisman]

John,
I'm trying to do the same as Sam - two different conditions for Major and minors and then trying to export them.  I did each point in one sample because I wanted to 'label the point'; something that you can't do in one Sample.  So now I have some 300 points to manually export (which is a nightmare to be honest with you).  Anyway this can be done automatically?

Would what you suggest in Aquire! with combined conditions work on a set of data I have already aquired?  and I just apply a new set up to the data set (even though I have two samples per point now?).  I tried using the combined conditions once in the Aquire! menu, but then when I ran the sample, it only ran the first condition and not the second.  When I set up two different set-ups and use the multiple setups in Automate, I had no problem (except now I have many files I need to export and can't do it in one go!).

Thanks,
Iris

[irisbuisman]

Additionally, If I do do this manually by selecting two samples (same point but different conditions) and clciking on "combine selected samples', it seems I can't export all the info I would like (det limits, count times, x,y,z coordinates etc) which you can do usually by right clicking and doing a specified output.

Is there a way to get this info?  So far I seem to only be able to get the oxide info copy and pasted into excel but I would need all of the rest of the 'meta-data'.

[John Donovan]

I'm not quite sure I understand everything you wrote, so please clarify if I misread what you are trying to say.

First of all, as I mentioned to Sam, one should really avoid acquiring different elements using different conditions separately and then combining them later. Yes, it can be done, but there are a couple of problems with this:

First, depending on the reproducibility of ones stage, the two acquisitions might not be in exactly the same place. Second, one has to combine the samples post acquisition, which as you point out is a bit of a hassle.

The only reason I can think of to acquire different elements in multiple samples is if one really needs to perform a TDI correction of more than one element per spectrometer, *and* the sample is homogeneous enough that is actually OK to acquire these samples at different sample locations.

I'll just mention here that if one already has samples acquired using different conditions and you want to combine them and also export your data (and meta data) as usual, you can use the "Combine the Selected Samples into a New Sample" button in the Analyze! window... then it will be just as if you acquired them as a single sample.

But if you haven't acquired the samples yet, instead what you should do is use the Combined Conditions feature in PFE to specify the column conditions for each element separately in a single sample. Then you can acquire as many points per sample as you like and get all the elements in one sample automatically (you are acquiring more than one point per sample to get statistics, right?).   

So here is an example of a sample setup with 5 (major) elements as the first element on each spectrometer, and then 4 more (trace) elements as the second element on 4 of those spectrometers:



Right now all 9 (or it could be 10) elements are using the same default conditions, but you can change the column conditions on an element by element basis in the Combined Conditions dialog as seen here:



In the Combined Conditions dialog you will see I've changed the beam current for Mg on spectrometer 1 from 30 to 100 nA:



Note that there is now a red colored divider between the first and second elements on that spectrometer. This divider represents the amount of time it takes to change beam currents (and/or keV, beam size) for the second column condition.

Next we do the same for the remaining (second) elements on the other spectrometers:



Now, when the sample setup is displayed, one can see the different beam conditions for each element.  Be sure to group elements with similar conditions so the acquisition runs efficiently!



Next I changed the counting time for the second (trace) elements to obtain better sensitivity.



And so now we can acquire such "combined condition" samples manually from the Acquire! window OR automatically from the Automate! window.

The advantage of using such "combined condition" acquisitions is that one does not need to combine the samples later, and because all the elements are already in a single sample one can easily and automatically export of the data (and meta data) with just a couple of mouse clicks.