Paper AS-ThP1
Depth Profiling Adventures in the Non-Semiconductor Chemical Industry

Thursday, November 2, 2017, 6:30 pm, Room Central Hall

Until recently, technology development for SIMS depth profiling was centered around flat semiconductor wafers. Sputter rates could be determined using standards and doped standards. Experimental protocols continue to be optimized, but figures of merit are for the most part understood.

With the expansion of computer memory and disk space, sophisticated vendor and third-party software, and new cluster beam sputter sources, SIMS (specifically ToF-SIMS) depth profiling is now being applied to distinctly non-flat, standards-defying, or just structurally-complex systems. In the realm of inorganic depth profiling, the quasi-parallel spectral acquisition compared to quadrupole mass analyzers and the use of multivariate statistics can mitigate many problematic mass interferences. For organic/polymeric systems such as fibers, resins, and coatings, huge Argon gas cluster sputtering enables molecular detection of sub-surface species. Hybrid systems such as OLEDs and paints continue to present challenges because of the different sputtering conditions needed for the different layers. For all of these samples, the ability to visualize the depth profiling data in 3D graphics is very powerful.

One could argue that these experiments are less true “depth profiling” experiments and more “just sputtering” to obtain sub-surface chemical information. In any case, this presentation will show examples of sputtering ToF-SIMS applications in an industrial environment that have been made possible through the implementation of new Argon cluster sputter beams and/or the use of multivariate statistics.