High-performance time - of - flight SIMS

Abstract

Progress in many fields of science and technology strongly depends on the availability of appropriate analytical techniques. This becomes increasingly true for all surface related technologies. A most important analytical information concerns the chemical composition of the uppermost monolayers. This information should be supplied with high sensitivity and high resolution, not only for the elemental but also for the molecular surface composition.Time - of - Flight SIMS supplies this molecular information, which cannot be obtained by other surface analytical techniques as AES (Auger electron spectroscopy), XPS (photoelectron spectroscopy), electron microscopy or the electron microprobe. The extremely high transmission allows static SIMS surface analysis with high lateral and mass resolution. Depending on the primary ion source, lateral resolutions below 100 nm are achieved. The Time - of - Flight technique allows parallel acquisition of a large number of ion images. It features an unlimited mass range obtained with an ultimate sensitivity based upon the parallel mass registration and the high transmission.