Uniform elemental analysis of materials by sputtering and photoionization mass spectrometry

Chun He, Julian N. Basler and Christopher H. Becker
Additional contact information
Chun He: SRI International
Julian N. Basler: SRI International
Christopher H. Becker: SRI International

Nature, 1997, vol. 385, issue 6619, 797-799

Abstract: Abstract Analysis of the elemental composition of surfaces commonly involves techniques in which atoms or ions are ablated from the material's surface and detected by mass spectrometry. Secondaryion mass spectrometry1,2 is widely used for detection with high sensitivity (down to a few parts per billion) but technical problems prevent it from being truly quantitative. Some of these problems are circumvented by nonresonant laser post-ionization of sputtered atoms followed by time-of-flight mass spectrometry (surface analysis by laser ionization: SALI)3–9. But when there are large differences in ionization probabilities amongst different elements in the material, the detection sensitivity can be non-uniform and accurate quantification remains out of reach. Here we report that highly uniform, quantitative and sensitive analysis of materials can be achieved using a high-energy (5-keV) ion beam for sputtering coupled with a very-high-intensity laser to induce multiphoton ionization of the sputtered atoms. We show uniform elemental sensitivity for several samples containing elements with very different ionization potentials, suggesting that this approach can now be regarded as quantitative for essentially any material.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/385797a0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6619:d:10.1038_385797a0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/385797a0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().