Highly charged ion based time-of-flight emission microscope

An emission microscope using highly charged ions as the excitation source h as been designed, constructed, and operated. A novel "acorn" objective lens has been used to simultaneously image electron and secondary ion emission. A resistive anode-position sensitive detector is used to determine the x-y position and time of arrival of the secondary events at the microscope ima ge plane. Contrast in the image can be based on the intensity of the electr on emission and/or the presence of particular secondary ions. Spatial resol ution of better than 1 mu m and mass resolution m/Delta m of better than 40 0 were demonstrated. Background rejection from uncorrelated events of great er than an order of magnitude is also achieved. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)03105-1].