RECOIL SPECTROMETRY - ION ACCELERATOR BASED ELEMENTAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SURFACE-LAYERS

Recoil spectrometry covers a group of techniques that are very similar to the well known Rutherford backscattering spectrometry technique, b ut with the important difference that one measures the recoiling targe t atom rather than the projectile ion. This makes it possible to deter mine both the identity of the recoil and its depth of origin from its energy and velocity, using a suitable detector system. The incident io n is typically high-energy (30-100 MeV) Cl-35, Br-81, or I-127. Low co ncentrations of light elements such as C, O and N can be profiled in a heavy matrix such as Fe or GaAs. Here we present an overview of mass and energy dispersive recoil spectrometry and illustrate its successfu l use in some typical applications.