10. Cluster SIMS

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is one of the most powerful techniques for material analysis. Sputtering of a solid induced by atomic ion bombardment leads to linear cascade collisions resulting in damage under the surface. Static SIMS, a technique in which the primary ion beam dose is restricted so that only 1 % of the surface is impacted by a primary ion, allows molecular information to be extracted from the sample that is representative of its chemistry [1]. A number of studies have shown that the sputtering and secondary ion formation efficiency improve with increasing the mass of the primary particles [2–16]. The projectiles such as Cs⁺(CsI) _n [2], (SF₅ ⁺) [13], massive glycerol cluster [17–20], C₆₀ ⁺ [9], Au₃ ⁺ [10,11], and Bi₃ ⁺ [21,22] have enabled the acquisition of SIMS spectra with highly enhanced sensitivity. It has been shown that some of the cluster ion beams have the potential to increase the secondary ion yields by more than three orders of magnitude compared with Ga [9,21].