Pulsed-laser time-of-flight atom-probe field ion microscope

Tsong, Tien T.; McLane, S. B.; Kinkus, T. J.

doi:10.1063/1.1137193

Cited by 102 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…In particular the implementation of laser pulsing capabilities [3][4][5][6][7][8], has made possible routine analysis of semiconducting materials. APT relies on the time-controlled removal of surface atoms in the form of ions, from a needle-shaped specimen, induced by a very intense electric field in a process known as field evaporation [9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some aspects of the field evaporation behaviour of GaSb

Müller¹,

Saxey²,

Smith³

et al. 2011

Ultramicroscopy

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Molecular or cluster ions are often observed in the atom probe microanalysis of III-V compound semiconductors. Here, in-depth data analysis of a series of experiments on GaSb reveals strong variations in the mass spectrum, cluster ion appearance and multiplicity of the detector-events with respect to the effective electric field at the specimen surface. These variations are discussed in comparison with Al 6XXX series alloys and pure W and it is proposed that they may originate from field-dissociation of molecular ions, which might contribute to compositional inaccuracies. Abstract 2

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Some aspects of the field evaporation behaviour of GaSb

Müller¹,

Saxey²,

Smith³

et al. 2011

Ultramicroscopy

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“…For surface science and ion emission studies, laser pulses are used for field desorption 3 to avoid excess ion energy losses. 4 The mass and energy resolution are improved dramatically now that the instrument can be used for energy analysis in ion emission and also in site-specific binding energy measurement of surface atoms. 5 When the ion energy is carefully calibrated for the system, the atom probe can be used for absolute energy analysis with the same single ion detection sensitivity and with an energy resolution of ¾š0.2 eV out of a total energy exceeding 10 keV.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 Initially, a nitrogen laser of pulse width 5 ns was used and the flight path was ¾2 m, but due to the stringent energy resolution needed for the site-specific binding energy analysis of surface atoms the length was extended to ¾8 m and a simple nitrogen laser of 300 ps pulse width was used. In addition, an electronic timer of resolution 156 ps was installed, and an extra stable d.c. power supply with an accurate digital voltmeter of eight-digit accuracy was used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time‐of‐flight atom‐probe field ion microscope studies of surface‐related phenomena

Tsong

2004

Surface & Interface Analysis

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The time-of-flight atom-probe field ion microscope is both a single-atom detection sensitivity mass-tocharge ratio analyser and an ion energy analyser, provided that the instrument resolution is good enough. Its major applications are in material analysis. However, it has been used also for studying surface-related phenomena such as surface segregation of alloys, mechanisms of ion formation in field desorption, novel ion and cluster ion formation in laser-stimulated field ion emission, field dissociation of compound ions and its novel isotope effects and analysis of the site-specific binding energy of surface atoms, etc. Some of these studies are briefly reviewed here.

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“…In parallel, from the early 2000s, a strong effort started to revive the pulsed-laser atom probe. Early implementation of such instruments made use of nanosecond laser sources (Kellogg & Tsong, 1980;Tsong et al, 1982), and, mostly due to the very strong heating of the specimen under illumination (Kellogg, 1981), were not considered not reliable enough for atom probe microanalysis, and were therefore confined to studying fundamental aspects of high-field nanoscience (Kellogg, 1982;Tsong & Kinkus, 1984). The availability of commercial, reliable laser sources delivering pulses in the picosecond and sub-picosecond range renewed the interest in the pulsed-laser atom probe, and from 2003 Imago Scientific Instruments (Bunton et al, 2007), shortly followed by academic groups (Cerezo et al, 2007a;Gault et al, 2006), pushed the development of a new generation of instruments, partly driven by the hope of exploiting nonthermal emission (Stoian et al, 2000).…”

Section: Instrumental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Brief Overview of Atom Probe Tomography Research

Gault

2016

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Atom probe tomography (APT) has been fast rising in prominence over the past decade as a key tool for nanoscale analytical characterization of a range of materials systems. APT provides three-dimensional mapping of the atom distribution in a small volume of solid material. The technique has evolved, with the incorporation of laser pulsing capabilities, and, combined with progress in specimen preparation, APT is now able to analyse a very range of materials, beyond metals and alloys that used to be its core applications. The present article aims to provide an overview of the technique, providing a brief historical perspective, discussing recent progress leading to the state-of-the-art, some perspectives on its evolution, with targeted examples of applications.Key Words: Atom probe tomography, Field evaporation, Materials characterization, Microscopy, Nanoscale Gault B 118The specimen is progressively destroyed, almost atom-byatom, and the atom probe microscope collects the timeof-flight and impact position of each ion. Processing of the data translates the time-of-flight into a mass-to-charge ratio, and the position is used to build a tomographic, atomically resolved image of the evaporated volume (Bas et al., 1995;Larson et al., 2013), represented as a point-cloud where every point is an atom that has been elementally identified and repositioned with a high degree of precision (Gault et al., 2010b). INSTRUMENTAL DESIGNEarly designs of the technique, usually referred to as atomprobe field ion microscopes or one-dimensional (1D) atom probe (Miller, 2000;Müller et al., 1968), had a very narrow field-of-view and really only provided linear compositional measurement in the depth of the sample, within a region of interest located by field-ion microscopy (Brenner & Goodman, 1971). APT was truly enabled by the implementation of position-sensitive, time-resolved particle detectors by Cerezo et al. (1988) followed by Blavette et al. (1993), and modern microscopes are equipped with delayline detectors (Da Costa et al., 2005; Jagutzki et al., 2002). The incorporation of micro-channel plates (MCPs) in the design of such detectors, to convert the impact of a single-ion into a cascade of up to millions of electrons, limits the efficiency approximately to the open area of the MCPs, so between 50%~80%. The MCPs are operated in saturated mode, which ensures almost no mass or atomic number sensitivity for ions in the range of 2~3 kV up to 15~20 kV up to several hundreds of Da, and the loss of ions is therefore nonspecific and assumed to be random and hence not affecting the technique's capacity to precisely measure the elemental composition. In order to increase the mass resolution of the technique, limited by the energy spread of the emitted ions, reflectron-lenses were fitted onto atom probes (Bémont et al., 2003;Cerezo et al., 1998;Panayi, 2006). A reflectron acts as an electrostatic mirror: ions penetrate inside a region containing a well-defined electric field in which ions are progressively slowed down until they are returne...

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Pulsed-laser time-of-flight atom-probe field ion microscope

Abstract: Analysis of solid surfaces using a pulsedlaser timeofflight atomprobe AIP Conf.

Cited by 102 publications

References 17 publications

Some aspects of the field evaporation behaviour of GaSb

Some aspects of the field evaporation behaviour of GaSb

Time‐of‐flight atom‐probe field ion microscope studies of surface‐related phenomena

A Brief Overview of Atom Probe Tomography Research

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