Analytical Requirements of SIMS and the Instrumental Implications

Abstract

Other surface characterization techniques such as electron probe microanalysis or Auger electron spectroscopy have reached a degree of perfection where only minor improvements are yet to be expected. This is not the case with SIMS. One of the reasons is the fact that, contrary to the above methods, where there is only one possible primary species, namely electrons, in SIMS the primary species can be chosen at will, in principle from among the 90 elements, not to mention compound ions. Since they are chemically different, they will yield different SIMS spectra from the same sample.