This document gives general guidelines for the determination of experimental parameters relating to the electron probe, the wavelength spectrometer, and the specimen that need to be taken into account when carrying out electron probe microanalysis. It also defines procedures for the determination of probe current, probe diameter, dead time, wavelength resolution, background, analysis area, analysis depth, and analysis volume.

This document is applicable for the analysis of a well-polished specimen using normal beam incidence.

This document does not apply to energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.