Calchemist is working with the Electron Probe Microanalysis Community to develop and make challenging new standards available.
• This starts as a crowdsourced discussion to identify problem areas and candidate materials on the New EPMA Standards - Probe Software Users Forum
• Candidate materials are being developed at Calchemist
• Candidate materials are then being evaluated by the EPMA community for their robustness
• Satisfactory materials are then being made available here for a cost intended to keep the development project moving forward with new candidates
• We recently applied for ARPA-E funding under the ROCKS program in hopes that they would fund the full development of the sixteen stable Rare Earth Elements, but we were notified that the project will not be funded. Our plan was to grow crystals, confirm the phase by PXRD, confirm rough composition by XRF, document and report the Raman and IR spectra, examine the crystals by EPMA to look for intra-crystal homogeneity (center to edge), dopants and inclusions from the flux, batch to batch homogeneity, and collect and share ICP-MS data. Without external funding it will be prohibitive to develop these materials the way we would like. In light of this we will pare down the work and try to get the crystals available with less characterization as soon as possible. If you are aware of alternate funding opportunities, please let us know!

Available Materials:
Rubidium Titanyl Phosphate, RbTiOPO4

Potassium Gadolinium Tungstate, KGd(WO4)2

Gadolinium Phosphate, GdPO4

Lanthanum Phosphate, LaPO4