Biomedical Applications of Synchrotron X-Ray Fluorescence

Since the exact role of trace elements in living organisms is still not very well known, it is a need of a careful analysis and study on trace element distributions in various biomedical materials. The conventional techniques such as X-ray fluorescence, proton-induced X-ray emission, atomic absorption spectrophotometry do not always give precise determination, especially in microstructures areas. Since synchrotron radiation is very powerful and gives the opportunity to work with micro-beams the synchrotron radiation induced X-ray emission technique has been recently developed. Due to many properties of synchrotron radiation it becomes a very useful tool in science. In this paper a characterization of different apparatus for a trace element analysis as well as several applications are described to show the usefulness of the synchrotron radiation induced X-ray emission.