MIQ-156 MARK II A Highly Advanced and Versatile Quadrupole SIMS Instrument, with Dual Primary Ion Source

Analytical work based on SIMS is greatly improved using primary beams of reactive gases. Matrix effects are reduced, ion yield are enhanced and relative peak intensities are more representative of the atomic surface concentration (1 to 6). This affords the use of different ion species and separate ion sources. We use a duoplasmatron to produce Ar+ , N₂+ and O₂+ ions combined to a commercial cesium ion source (7). Aim of our development is to check the feasibility of a dual line configuration, so that both sources can be run simultaneously and the beam switched in a matter of minutes.