Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and Its Application to Materials Science (Second Edition)

In this edition of Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) and its Application to Material Science the authors expand further on the principles and methods presented in the first edition. A more detailed overview of the principles of SIMS is be given, and how the development of dual-beam instruments has blurred the traditional fields of dynamic and static SIMS to enable greater analytical possibilities. In particular the development and application of cluster ion beams, and how this has opened up a new area of materials analysis. Practical information on how to obtain high quality SIMS data, and what parameters should be used to define this are also considered.

Like the first edition its aim continues to be for final year undergraduates, first year PhD students, and anyone who may be starting out using secondary ion mass spectrometry as part of their research, with the purpose of giving a clear description of the science that underpins SIMS along with comprehensible description of the main components that make up a modern SIMS instrument, and the many variations that have been developed over recent years. There is a clear description of the types of analyses that may be carried out in a SIMS experiment; mass spectrometry, ion mapping, depth profiling, and 3D analyses, and explanations on how to define high quality data (image resolution etc.). In the final section, an updated collection of applications are presented. Several different material groups are considered, including nanoparticle characterisation and different approaches to sample preparation.