Characterisation of biomaterials using ToF-SIMS

In the field of biomaterials and biological compounds, ToF-SIMS has exhibit ed large interest due to high surface sensitivity, an information depth lim ited to the top-surface and molecular imaging capabilities. Selected exampl es given in this review concern recent applications like characterisation o f engineered heterogeneous bioactive surfaces (including biosensors), combi natorial synthesis of peptides, molecular imaging of cells and quantificati on of biomolecules in real biological samples. These examples illustrate ad vantages and possible limitations of ToF-SIMS in this research field. Recen t improvement with focus on these limitations is also briefly reviewed.