Paper AS-ThP11
The Benefits of Using All of the Measured Mass Channels During MVSA of ToF-SIMS Data Sets
Thursday, October 22, 2015, 6:00 pm, Room Hall 3
| Session: |
Applied Surface Science Poster Session |
| Presenter: |
Vincent Smentkowski, General Electric Global Research Center |
| Authors: |
V. Smentkowski, General Electric Global Research Center
M.R. Keenan, Independent Scientist
H. Arlinghaus, ION-TOF GmbH
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| Correspondent: |
Click to Email |
Time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) data sets are very large and contain a wealth of information about the material being analyzed. A typical image data set can be comprised of 256 x 256 pixels with a 0 to 900 amu (or greater) mass spectrum collected at high (M/ΔM ~10,000) mass resolution at every pixel. Data sets are often comprised of >1 x 1015 spectral channels. The challenge for a ToF-SIMS analyst is to scrutinize all of the measured information without bias in order to provide for the most robust understanding of the material being analyzed; this is especially important in an industrial setting where unknown samples are analyzed. Multivariate statistical analysis (MVSA) algorithms have assisted in ToF-SIMS data work up [1,2], however commercially available software is not able to handle data sets this large and the analysts often select mass intervals to utilize and/or degrades the mass resolution prior to MVSA analysis. In this poster, we will report first results obtained using MVSA software that is able to handle massive ToF-SIMS data sets. We demonstrate two important benefits of unbiased analysis of the massive ToF-SIMS data sets: (1) finding unexpected elements in real world samples (this is a reason why the authors never use peak lists for MVSA analysis) and (2) the ability to obtain high mass resolution results from data sets collected at nominal mass resolution (e.g., the beam alignment pulsing mode on ION-TOF instruments). The importance of these two benefits will be highlighted.
References: [1] Surface and Interface Analysis, Special issue on Multivariate Analysis. Volume 41, issue 2 Feb 2009
[2] Surface and Interface Analysis, Special issue on Multivariate Analysis II. Volume 41 issue 8, Aug 2009