Wavelength-dispersive total reflection X-ray fluorescence (WD-TXRF) equipment supported by an energy-dispersive (ED) solid-state detector (SSD) has been developed and installed in the BL16XU Industrial Consortium ID Beamline for Material Research at the SPring-8 synchrotron radiation research facility. Equipment specifications are given and results from our initial experiment are discussed in this paper. In the experiment on the sensitivity of detection of metallic impurities on a Si wafer, the lower limit of detection (LLD) using a Ge-SSD reached an order of 10⁸ atoms/cm² with a corresponding absolute weight of approximately 10 fg for ED-TXRF. In comparison, an order of 10⁹ atoms/cm² with a corresponding weight of around 100 fg was obtained for WD-TXRF for the first time. Although ED-TXRF still has a lower LLD, using WD-TXRF can provide good energy resolution with a high count rate, opening up a new field of X-ray fluorescence measurement.

A new X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurement system under atmospheric pressure in the soft X-ray region has been installed at the beamline BL11 of Saga Light Source (SAGA-LS) in Japan. XAFS spectra in the lower photon energy region of about 2–4 keV could be newly obtained at the beamline. The system was applied to obtain sulphur K-edge XAFS spectra of solid and oily specimens using fluorescence yield and electron yield modes. The spectra were successfully collected. We anticipate that this new system will have various applications in environmental and biochemical research.