Understanding of the field evaporation of surface modified oxide materials through transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography

Abstract

Understanding of triggering the field evaporation of surface ions on the non-conductive materials enables improvement in the mass resolution in laser-pulsed atom probe tomography. This study addresses the influence of surface modification through metallic-capped layers, such as Co, Ni, and Ag, with surrounding bulk MgO tips on the physical mechanisms responsible for field evaporation and on the mass resolving power compared to uncapped bulk MgO. In particular, the field evaporation on the surface regions of Ag-capped bulk MgO tips during analysis was extensively observed by transmission electron microscopy to confirm the overall evaporation sequences occurring at the tip surface. We found that the introduction of such capping layers, especially for Ag-capping, controls both symmetric tip geometry at the surface of the specimens and the mass resolving power of ion species consisting of MgO materials. This implies the improvements in the symmetries of local field distributions and the isotropy of thermal heating across the tip surface. It reveals that Ag-capping with high thermal diffusivity promotes the compositional uniformities between the laser illumination side and the opposite side for MgO samples as well as the reduced fraction of multiple events for oxygen ions between both sides. Moreover, a variation in the thickness of the Ag-capping layer is an additional factor governing a thermal-assisted mechanism of MgO evaporation. Based on our findings, homogeneous thermal heat transfer for MgO emission along the tip axis by Ag-capping layers may be significant in potential methods for improvement.