The damage of polymer surfaces caused by the high energy primary ion beams of TOF-SIMS was examined using Ar cluster ions. Polymer damage, the damage of secondary ions detected from the polystyrene surface and the damage layer formed by the Bi 3 primary ion beam have previously been studied. In this study, the damage observed in the secondary ions was studied by using Ar cluster primary ions. The secondary ions were mainly classified into two types, ions reflecting the polystyrene structure and cyclized ions, generated by excessive energy, which are not useful for qualitative analysis. The layer damaged by irradiation of the Bi 3 primary ion regarding PS samples was confirmed using Ar cluster sputtering beams. The depth of the layer that has chemical damage in the PS main chain caused by 30 kV Bi 3 ++ (ion dose: 5 × 10 12 ions/cm 2 ) irradiation was approximately 50-60 nm. The Ar cluster ion sputter rate in PS decreases with the Bi 3 ion irradiation. Micro PS particles that are not able to be detected by a conventional TOF-SIMS measurement can be effectively analyzed by accumulating the secondary ions over the static limit using Ar cluster sputtering.

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In a present device technology, the controlled nanometer-sized semiconductor structures making technology and the evaluation approach are indispensable. Secondary ion mass spectrometry is one of the useful techniques for such an evaluation, but it also has the problem to evaluate samples required nanometer-sized depth resolution quantitatively because of "matrix effect" in the near-surface and interfacial regions. Resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization sputtered neutral mass spectrometry (REMPI-SNMS) is one of the promising methods to reduce the influence of the matrix effects. As compared with CsMg + detection, SNMS is more useful to evaluate the real depth profile of the dopant, Mg in Al x Ga 1-x As/GaAs system.