Primary ions

In the case of ion exchangers, the primary ions are chemically bonded into the ftamework of the polymer, and the exchange is between ions in the secondary layer. A few illustrations of these various types of processes follow. 

Similar to QSS, direct recoil (DR) of surface atoms produces energetic atoms that have a relatively narrow velocity distribution. DR particles are those species which are recoiled from the surface layers as a result of a direct collision of the primary ion. They escape from the surface with little energy loss through collisions with... 

Figure Bl.25.8. The principle of SIMS Primary ions with an energy between 0.5 and 10 keV cause a collisional cascade below the surface of the sample. Some of the branches end at the surface and stimulate the emission of neutrals and ions. In SIMS, the secondary ions are detected directly with a mass spectrometer.

Instead of the fast-atom beam, a primary ion-beam gun can be used in just the same way. Generally, such an ion gun emits a stream of cesium ions (Cs ), which are cheaper to use than xenon but still have large mass (atomic masses Cs, 139 Xe, 131). Although ion guns produce no fragment ions in the primary beam, they can contaminate the mass spectrometer by deposition with continued use. 

A typical single microchannel electron multiplier. Note how the primary ion beam causes a shower of electrons to form, The shower is accelerated toward the other end of the microchannel, causing the formation of more and more secondary electrons. 

In Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS), a solid specimen, placed in a vacuum, is bombarded with a narrow beam of ions, called primary ions, that are suffi-ciendy energedc to cause ejection (sputtering) of atoms and small clusters of atoms from the bombarded region. Some of the atoms and atomic clusters are ejected as ions, called secondary ions. The secondary ions are subsequently accelerated into a mass spectrometer, where they are separated according to their mass-to-charge ratio and counted. The relative quantities of the measured secondary ions are converted to concentrations, by comparison with standards, to reveal the composition and trace impurity content of the specimen as a function of sputtering dme (depth). 

A few mm in direct plasma sputtering 0.1—10 pm using separate, focused primary ion-beam sputtering... 

Ni(IIO). The top part of the figure shows the scattering geometry. The primary ion energy was 101 keV. 

Figure 1 Schematic of CMAISS device showing primary ion beam, analyzer, and scattering at 138°.

The detection limit of each element depends upon the electron affinity or ionization potential of the element itself, the chemical nature of the sample in which it is contained, and the type and intensity of the primary ion beam used in the sputtering process. 

If the primary ion beam is used to continuously remove material from the surface of a specimen in a given area, the analytical zone is advanced into the sample as a function of the sputtering time. By monitoring the secondary ion count rates of selected... 

Figure 2 Relationship of SIMS, separate bombardment SNMSs and direct bombardment SNMSd. (a) Materials for SIMS analysis are those ions formed In the sputtering with a focused primary ion beam. The largest fraction of the particles sputtered from the surface are neutral atoms, (b) Ions for SNMS analysis are formed by ionization of the sputtered neutrals, (c) When the plasma is used as an ionizer, plasma ions can also be used to sputter the sample surface at low energies.

The instrumentation for SSIMS can be divided into two parts (a) the primary ion source in which the primary ions are generated, transported, and focused towards the sample and (b) the mass analyzer in which sputtered secondary ions are extracted, mass separated, and detected. 

By bombarding a surface consisting of species A with primary ions, the surface coverage of A is reduced. Particles of A can he removed hy desorption, hy driving them into a deeper layer or, for molecular species, hy fragmentation. The ratio of the number of sputtered particles to the number of primary ions is given by the disappearance yield Y (A) ... 

The average number of emitted particles X per incident primary ion is given by the secondary yield Y (X ) ... 

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