Energy Compensated Atom Probe ECAP

The ECAP incorporates an electrostatic lens in the time-of-flight spectrometer in order to improve the mass resolution by compensating for small spreads in the energies of the ions evaporated from the specimen under the pulsed electric field. A lens design by Poschenrieder or a reflectron type of electrostatic lens is used for this purpose, and is standard equipment for metallurgical or materials applications of APFIM. These typically improve the mass resolution at full width half maximum (FWHM) from m/Am 250 to better than 2000. 

This schematic diagram shows that the true composition of particles can be obtained only when the probe hole covers the particle entirely. When the probe hole covers both the particle and the matrix, the measured concentration is lower than the real one. Again, when an interface is not perpendicular to the cylinder of analysis, the apparent concentration change at the interface appears diffuse, even if the real concentration change is discrete. The standard deviation for concentration, a, is given by 

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