E-BEAM SNMS - A COMPLEMENTARY SURFACE-ANALYSIS TECHNIQUE

Sputtered neutral mass spectrometry (SNMS) with ionization by low-ener gy electron beam offers several analytical advantages that complement the capabilities of the major surface analysis techniques: XPS, AES an d SIMS. These include easy operation on insulator specimens, reduced i nfluence of topography or sample tilt, low spread of elemental relativ e sensitivity factors (RSFs) across the periodic table, near-constant RSFs in different matrices and hence quantification from 100% down to trace concentrations, ppm detection limits, microprobe operation for d epth profiling and submicron imaging and depth resolutions as for SIMS (greater-than-or-equal-to 1 nm). In addition to these analytical perf ormances, the equipment shares much in common with quadrupole SIMS fac ilities and, as with that technique, is easily integrated into multite chnique instruments. This paper compares performances of SNMS and SIMS on the same samples and presents some imaging and useful yield data f rom a close-coupled ionizer, which is a new development on the 410 SIM SLAB. Comparisons are also made between SIMS, SNMS and AES.