IMAGING SURFACE SPECTROSCOPY FOR 2-DIMENSIONAL AND 3-DIMENSIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF MATERIALS

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) exhibits a unique potential for the measurement of two-and three-dimensional distributions of trace e lements in advanced materials, which is demonstrated on relevant techn ological problems. One example is the characterization of high purity iron. With this material segregation experiments have been performed a nd the initial and final distribution of the trace elements have been measured. Another example is the investigation of the corrosion behavi our of high purity chromium. Samples oxidized with O-16 and O-18 have been measured to explain the growing and adhesion of the oxide layer. All imaging techniques generate a vast quantitiy of data. In order to extract the important information the assistance of chemometric tools is essential. Detection of chemical phases by classification using neu ral networks or de-noising of scanning-SIMS images by wavelet-filterin g demonstrates the increase of the performance of analytical imaging t echniques.