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Published June 2004 | public
Journal Article

A new time-of-flight instrument for quantitative surface analysis

Abstract

A new generation of time-of-flight mass spectrometers that implement ion sputtering and laser desorption for probing solid samples and can operate in regimes of laser post-ionization secondary neutral mass spectrometry and secondary ion mass spectrometry is being developed at Argonne National Laboratory. These new instruments feature novel ion optical systems for efficient extraction of ions from large laser post-ionization volumes and for lossless transport of these ions to detectors. Another feature of this design is a new in-vacuum all-reflecting optical microscope with 0.5-μm resolution. Advanced ion and light optics and three ion sources, including a liquid metal ion gun (focusable to 50 nm) and a low energy ion gun, give rise to an instrument capable of quantitative analyses of samples for the most challenging applications, such as determining elemental concentrations in shallow implants at ultra-trace levels (for example, solar wind samples delivered by NASA Genesis mission) and analyzing individual sub-micrometer particles on a sample stage (such as, interstellar dust delivered by NASA Stardust mission). Construction of a prototype instrument has been completed and testing is underway. A more advanced instrument of similar design is under construction. The overall design of the new instrument and the innovations that make it unique are outlined. Results of the first tests to characterize its analytical capabilities are presented also.

Additional Information

© 2004 Elsevier B.V. Available online 19 February 2004. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, BES-Materials Sciences, under Contract W-31-109-ENG-38, and by NASA under Work Orders W-19,895 and W-10,091. The authors would like to thank Dr. Chun-Yen Chen for her participation in testing the SPIRIT instrument and measurements of many mass spectra including those shown in Fig. 3.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023