The Henry Royce Institute
The Henry Royce Institute

J105 SIMS Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry

Ionoptika

Photon Science Institute (PSI) | Surface Characterisation Platform | University of Manchester

ToF-SIMS is an advanced label-free technique for the atomic and molecular characterisation and imaging of a broad range of materials in 2D and 3D.

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Description

This equipment is part of Surface Characterisation of the Multidisciplinary Characterisation Facility.

Material is sputtered from a sample surface at the molecular level by a scanning high-energy ion beam and subjected to simultaneous chemical and positional analysis by advanced mass spectrometry. These capabilities are highly complementary to NanoSIMS, XPS and electron microscopy.

Uses / Applications

ToF-SIMS analysis has delivered major advances in diverse fields such as biomaterials, energy storage, catalysis, nanotechnology and organic electronics. For example a full chemical 3D image to 20 micron depth in a solid-state battery electrode can be obtained, revealing the chemistry of defects and buried interfaces. Biomolecular distributions in cells and tissue scaffolds can be imaged in a parallel manner to determine cellular interactions and aid understanding of biocompatibility.