Nondestructive discrimination of small glass fragments for forensic examination using high energy synchrotron radiation x‐ray fluorescence spectrometry

This paper demonstrates that high‐energy SR‐XRF (synchrotron radiation x‐ray fluorescence spectrometry) utilizing 116 keV x‐rays is a powerful technique for nondestructive discrimination of small glass fragments. An XRF spectrum of glass fragments of a standard material SRM612 gave well‐resolved K‐line peaks of 34 elements, including the rare‐earth elements. The relative standard deviations (RSD) of the ratios of the intensities of heavy elements normalized by that of Ba were less than 8.2% for the analyses of 10 fragments (<1 mg) in the energy region above 20 keV. A comparison of glass fragments (<1 mg) obtained from 26 figured glass sheet was performed using elemental intensity ratios that were defined as the intensities of detected elements divided by that of Ba. Analyses of glass fragments revealed the existence of Mo, Pd, Sb, Cs and Bi, and these trace elements could be useful as important indexes to discriminate glass samples. The Ce:Ba ratios could be measured for all the samples with precision of 1.9% and were found to be quite effective parameters for identification of glass fragments, even though these fragments would contain no other characteristic heavy elements. All glass fragments in this study that could not be distinguished on the basis of refractive index (RI) values could be discriminated by this method. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.