Review and perspectives on energy dispersive high resolution PIXE and RYIED

Until 2008, high-resolution particle-induced x-ray emission (HR-PIXE) work used mostly wavelength dispersive spectrometers and aimed at fundamental problems and application demonstrations. The method was hardly used for applications in general, mostly due to the small energy window and solid angle of most equipment. In the last 14 years, a few facts pushed HR-PIXE out and beyond this framework. Here, we focus on the developments following the observation of x-ray relative yield ion energy dependence (RYIED) effects on transitions to the same sub-shell, in PIXE experiments, in 2004, and the installation, in 2008, of the first energy dispersive HR-PIXE (EDS HR-PIXE) system. Both facts are among those that were concurrent to the emergence of new problems and perspectives in PIXE and in fundamental atomic physics in the recent past. This review covers these 14 years of results on these issues and the answers they recently led to. Evidence for new problems and perspectives, including the potential access to chemical bonding and/or solid state information, based on EDS HR-PIXE work, are discussed. Furthermore, the grounds for the possibility of developments leading to a new field of atomic solid state physics are presented.