IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Applied Surface Analysis Monday Sessions
       Session AS-MoM

Invited Paper AS-MoM5
Data Interpretation and Quantitative Analysis - A Global Approach in Static SIMS

Monday, October 29, 2001, 11:00 am, Room 134

Session: Quantitative Analysis and Data Interpretation I: SIMS
Presenter: I.S. Gilmore, National Physical Laboratory, UK
Authors: I.S. Gilmore, National Physical Laboratory, UK
M.P. Seah, National Physical Laboratory, UK
Correspondent: Click to Email
Static SIMS spectra are rich in information but their complexity is an acknowledged barrier to the wider take up of the technique in industry. To identify an unknown material using static SIMS, an analyst needs to compare the measured spectrum with those available in spectral libraries. However, existing spectrometers use a wide variety of instrumental geometries, primary ion species and operating energies. Consequently, data from different laboratories differ significantly and data in handbooks and libraries are only broadly comparable. Additionally, existing libraries (1250 spectra) are small compared to those used in organic mass spectrometry (356000 spectra) and are tiny in comparison to the industrial need. A strategy of methods is required to interpret and quantify spectra of unknown materials. For those instances when reliable spectra are contained in libraries, multivariate and artificial neural network approaches can give accurate identification and quantitative information. These methods will be discussed and compared. However, if the material is not in the library as is generally the case, an entirely new method, known as G-SIMS or gentle-SIMS@footnote 1@ is fruitful. This method gives relatively simple spectra whose peaks are directly related to the molecules present and their main constituents. These spectra may be interpreted without a library. These approaches may be combined to form a global strategy for the analysis of a wide range of surfaces. @FootnoteText@ @footnote 1@I S Gilmore and M P Seah, Appl. Surf. Sci. 161 (2000) 465.