June 23rd- Day 5

Back to square one.

When we got there we removed the detector and set up the camera again. Instantly, we got the image we were looking for and set the detector back up. At first we scanned the optic without the knife edge giving us a larger surface area to locate the spot. Still nothing. Alex concluded that there must have been communication issues between the computer and the detector. Alex worked his magic and tried a few different things. We tried calibrated the detector using an Fe-55 isotope. We switch into PHA mode and hit acquire on and looked for the peak. After reading the channel of the main peak the value and known energy of Mn K alpha were entered. The energy of Mn K alpha was used because the Fe-55 isotope decays to that energy. Next the ROI was found by switching to energy > spectrum > and look for the desired peak. In this case we were looking for the K alpha peak not the K beta one. Select the ROI with the red lines and hit 'set ROI'. Then the pin hole was taken off the detector to maximize the area of the detector. We scanned x and y and both were unsuccessful. Alex suggested calculating the difference in Bragg angles between Cu K alpha and Cu K beta. Using the Bragg equation we found the difference in angles to be 1.37 degrees which meant we had to move the detector 0.4mm in the negative x direction. After looking at the set up, we realized that we had not taken into account the distance from the anode to the outside of the x-ray source. The set up had to be realigned, yet again, but once that was done we were ready to go... for tomorrow.