Practical Aspects of Focused Ion Beam Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry Analysis Enhanced by Fluorine Gas Coinjection

The interest in using high vacuum-compatible time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) detectors integrated within focused beam instruments (FIB) has increased due to the possibility of conducting correlative and/or complementary studies with other techniques such as scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), wavelength spectroscopy, backscatter diffraction, atomic force and Raman without breaking vacuum conditions. This work discusses practical aspects FIB-TOF-SIMS analysis enhanced by fluorine gas. A series systematic experiments high-purity Al Cu single crystals was conducted. We demonstrate that fluorine-assisted yields up several orders magnitude higher SIMS signals chemically improved ionization probability elements. potential gas-assisted correlated benefits are demonstrated on a real-life sample based comparing results EDS TOF-SIMS conducted any Our indicate presence gas reduces negative effect preferential reoxidation surface. enables lateral resolution mapping because not dominated elements strongly oxygen-enhanced probability.