A New Approach to Surface Imaging by Nano Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry

Many of the complex materials developed today derive their unique properties from the presence of multiple phases or from local variations in elemental concentration. Simply performing analysis of the bulk materials is not sufficient to achieve a true understanding of their physical and chemical natures. Secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) has met with a great deal of success in material characterization. The basis of SIMS is the use of a focused ion beam to erode sample atoms from the selected region. The atoms undergo a charge exchange with their local environment, resulting in their conversion to positive and negative secondary ions. The mass spectrometric analysis of these secondary ions is a robust method capable of identifying elemental distribution from hydrogen to uranium with detectability of the parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb) in atomic range. Nano secondary ion mass spectrometer (Nano SIMS, Cameca Nano-SIMS 50) equipped with the reactive ion such as a cesium gun and duoplasmatron gun has a spatial resolution of 50 nm which is much smaller than other SIMS. Therefore, Nano SIMS is a very valuable tool to map the spatial distribution of elements on the surface of various materials In this talk, the surface imaging applications of Nano SIMS in KBSI will be presented.